If you spend much time at all with your phone then you’ll definitely need to organise your home screen icons. Out of the box your smart phone has got a basic layout. Once you’ve played around a bit you’ll have some favourite apps that you should have quick access to on your home screen. Many of us never stop and spend a bit of time getting our phone layout just right for us. Here are a few quick tips – Go on, take 3-5 minutes and shuffle things around a bit.
Computers have lots of memory but no imagination – It’s up to you to choose your phone layout to suit you and your favourite apps. Try these handy tips though:
- Start by tidying up. Delete the apps or shortcuts you don’t want anymore. Hold down each app until it wobbles, or you see a frame pop up around your screen.
- iOS: Delete the whole app by pressing the cross that pops up on the top right corner of the app button. Or move all the apps you don’t use often into a group to keep them tidy.
- Android: Drag the app to the rubbish bin from the home page to remove the shortcut (your app will still be in the app library).
- Delete those big tiles that say stuff you don’t care about. Like the weather in San Fransisco – which is just using your batteries anyway.
- The apps you use most should be in the middle of your screen – It’s the easiest, most natural way for one-handed button mashing to get you to the app you need with the least possible fluffing around.
- Hold your finger down on each app you want to move until you enter ‘edit mode’, then drag the app to the best position. Any app you use every day should be on your home screen.
- Create a group folder by dragging two icons on top of each other. It can take a couple of goes to stop the underneath one popping out of the way. Be quick and stop dragging the app as soon as you’re covering the underneath one. Adding more apps to the same group is easier since the first app stops jumping out of the way.
- Organise your app library and/or home screen so it makes sense to you – try any of these options: Alphabetical, grouped icon colours, verb groups.