Smartphone App Reorganization

Ah, the New Year.  And as 2017 exits and 2018 slides into place I feel the need to do a little reorganizing.  Not around the house, mind you.  That has been a constant ever since we moved in back in April.  No, I’m referring to something more personal – and more bittersweet as I reflect on it.

I’m referring specifically to the app layout on my smartphone.

(Oops.  Screens 3 and 4 are in reverse order.  Oh well.)

I’ve found as we all do that some apps I used to use more frequently have fallen by the wayside and some have come more into prominence, but even more pronounced since the move from Seattle back to Knoxville.

Out With the Old …

Let’s start with the ones I just don’t use anymore.

• Citymapper?  Well, the closest city that it has maps for is DC/Baltimore, and I have no plans to go there anytime soon.  But it does have Seattle, London, Vancouver, and a few others I may visit soon-ish.  Keep, but maybe in a separate folder for Travel stuff.  
• OneBusAway?  Sigh.  I love this app.  I used it frequently to see when the next bus was due … when I lived in Seattle.  But it’s gathering edust right now.  Into the Travel folder it goes.  Ditto Trip Planner which is also Seattle (Puget Sound) specific.
• PayByPhone?  Hmm.  This one is great for feeding the parking meter (even when away from the meter) and has a built in alarm to let you know when you are close to expiration, but Knoxville doesn’t use it for their meters … yet?  Hmm.  Travel folder … for now.
• SmartTrips?  It’s at least Knoxville-based, but it isn’t useful to me right now.  Gone.
• PetDesk?  Our vet clinic has been pushing it for making appointments et cetera, but we just call or stop by most of the time (seeing as Deb used to WORK there).  Gone.
• Zillow?  I used it when looking for a house, but now it’s only good for when Deb sees a monster of a house with a ‘For Sale’ sign and is curious what the price is just for laughs.  Gone.  She has her own phone she can use it on.
• Skype?  Honestly I think I’ve used this once and it was not a great experience.  Besides, I had trouble with it freezing up when I just tried to sign in just now.  Gone.
• GasBuddy?  I really tend to go get gas at Costco, so an app telling where to find the cheapest gas nearby doesn’t do me much good.  However, I won’t always be near a Costco when travelling, so … Travel folder.
• RAW?  A photo app I don’t ever use.  If I really want a high-quality shot of anything, I’ll pull out the Nikon DSLR.  Gone. Instagram is good enough for phone-based snapshots.
• And Wordlens.  <sigh>  I really liked this app that used the camera to provide translations of texts from various languages into what might pass for English (enough for context, anyway), but now you have to purchase language packs.  I can use Google Translate for that now (at least when the letters are accessible on my keyboard).

Shifting Around

Now time to get down to the nitty-gritty of this process.  What stays on the main screen, and what gets relegated to the basement, as it were.  

Do I need two weather apps on the front screen?  TWC wins this one and Weather goes all the way back (though it stays out of the ‘Apple Junk’ folder for now).  News comes back out of ‘Apple Junk’ and back up front since I rarely watch TV news these days.

Tripit moves to travel.  I still have to decide if I use it enough to keep it around much longer.

Twitter makes the front screen.   Room for one more.  We’ll give Fuelly a shot.  And my newest app, Old Sport (recommended by Carla Basile) gets a spot on screen two.

Now to just move some other stuff around a bit to fill in the second and third screens and violá.  I know, Regal, you wanted a shot further up, but you frustrate me so (if you hadn’t locked up while I was trying to access my tickets for Last Jedi recently … ).

Ah, better.  Now I just have to clean up the photo albums.  That could take a while.