A Simple iPhone
Mar 2, 11:00 AMI love a simple iPhone. I wish I still had one.
Here’s the thing: with the evolution of the iPhone platform and the introduction of web clips and the App Store, my iPhone has gotten cluttered. Very cluttered. There are screens full of applications that I haven’t used in months — including some very good applications!
That’s the thing about clutter. It’s not about the quality of the thing that takes up the space, it’s the utility.
I had the opportunity to play with my mother-in-law’s iPhone 1.0 last week. That’s right, the original software from 2007, with the blue camera tint and original Calculator icon. Core Location? App Store? iTunes Store? Dream on. Just three rows of icons, a black row, and another row of icons.
Were there things I missed? Sure. Core Location and decent camera coloring would have been nice. But, surprisingly the phone was even more a joy to use than my own. Perhaps it’s the nostalgia talking, but the lack of clutter made the phone feel more useful.
I realized how much I needed to declutter my iPhone.
Decluttering your iPhone is much like decluttering your closet. To steal a page from Peter Walsh, if I don’t use it, or it doesn’t ‘fit’, then it doesn’t matter how good of an app it is — it’s clutter. And it needs to go.
I resisted on a lot of the applications. There are some that I thought would be useful in the right situation, like Easy Wi-Fi for AT&T iPhones or Night Camera. But that situation never comes (I have never used the Easy Wi-Fi application) or is so rare that it’s really just a waste of mental space on the screen.
So out they go (with a nice high rating, naturally.)
If you’re having trouble letting some of these utilities go, just remember — you have the App Store on your phone now, and can download it again in a few minutes.
There are other apps that I know other folks adore, but just aren’t right for me. Pandora Radio is a good example of this. It’s a great application, but I don’t listen to a lot of music on my iPhone (or in my car). Pandora has sat on Screen 6 since I downloaded it, and I’ve launched it exactly twice.
Unless those hypothetical other people are using your phone too, these kinds of apps need to go, too.
(Oddly, I find that I do use Shazam to identify songs I hear in passing. It’s one of those applications that works like magic, and I love trotting it out as part of the dog-and-pony show.)
Web clips are just as bad as native apps in contributing to iPhone clutter. I haven’t read the excellent 538 since November, so why do I still have it on Screen 3?
Also, why did I have both Amazon Mobile and my Amazon wish list bookmarked? Or Twitterrific, Hahlo, and Mobile Twitter on a single screen? Don’t get me wrong — these are all good apps, but in most cases the website is sufficient.
It’s unfortunate that the managing the layout of the iPhone Springboard is so difficult. It’s maddening to get everything the way you like it on the device, only to have iTunes add deleted applications back on your next sync. I quite enjoyed the App Sorting in iTunes concept video:
The only constructive thing I have to add to that idea is that I’d love to be able to remove some of the default applications. These aren’t bad applications, they’re just not what I want on my phone. Stocks, Notes, and Contacts: it’s not you, it’s me. I’m just not that into you.
Decluttering anything is tough. It requires you to envision how you want your life to be, and how you want to interact with your environment. It makes you look at those 7… 8… okay, 9 screens full of icons and ask, do they really add any value to my everyday life?
Because face it: you deserve tools that make you happy to use them.
