This may seem kind of strange, but something that has been confusing me a lot with Android lately: What is the point of a home screen?
I follow several threads with some real nice screen grabs of launchers with nice wallpapers, clocks, weather, shortcuts, etc. I've got a good collection of wallpapers and I love finding out about new widgets.
BUT - from a *functional* standpoint, I must be missing something.
Day/Date/Time/Weather/Battery - all can be seen from the notification bar if you'd like. Yes, the home screen ones will look much better. But are people really going to their home screens to admire their clock widget, or just glancing at the time on the notification bar?
Shortcuts to launch apps can be done via Swipepad or similar (Smart Taskbar, Clutchpad). I find the generic App draw totally useless. Overall, to me, shortcuts on the home screen feels like the Windows equivalent of minimizing all your apps to click a desktop shortcut every time you want to launch a new app.
Many other good widgets are there for say Agendas, Tasks, Calendars, Twitter, Music Player controls - but I usually would rather just launch the full app instead of a stripped down widget.
Now some advantages that I can see for home screens/widgets: Having different things "open" at the same time (example: Having a 4x3 photo widget that rotates every 5 minutes with a 4x1 Music control so you can see both at the same time).
I can also see a small case for having a series of widgets on a different screen so you could easily slide from screen 1/4x4 Twitter widget to screen 2/4x4 Facebook, screen 3/4x4 music widget - and just constantly sliding back & forth instead of holding down the home button & switching back & forth between apps.
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Just for reference, my current setup has the Calendar in Notification Bar app linked to an app called Organized Drawer. This lets me get to all my apps in a simple fashion. To get to my top apps, I currently use SwipePad - so I never have to go my home screen to launch apps.
I have 3 home screens. Center is Weather, Battery, Time, Date, Contact widget. Left screen is a 4x4 Agenda. Right screen is two Task widgets (one work, one home).
Overall, I rarely go there at all.
I also use Widget Locker. Keeping in mind that every time most people turn their phones on they see their lock screen, so in this case I can see making pretty screens with all the stuff I mentioned above (and shortcuts to common apps).
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Anyway, not knocking the system, but is it me, or does everyone rarely actually use their home screen in real-life day to day usage?? Am I missing the boat here?
I follow several threads with some real nice screen grabs of launchers with nice wallpapers, clocks, weather, shortcuts, etc. I've got a good collection of wallpapers and I love finding out about new widgets.
BUT - from a *functional* standpoint, I must be missing something.
Day/Date/Time/Weather/Battery - all can be seen from the notification bar if you'd like. Yes, the home screen ones will look much better. But are people really going to their home screens to admire their clock widget, or just glancing at the time on the notification bar?
Shortcuts to launch apps can be done via Swipepad or similar (Smart Taskbar, Clutchpad). I find the generic App draw totally useless. Overall, to me, shortcuts on the home screen feels like the Windows equivalent of minimizing all your apps to click a desktop shortcut every time you want to launch a new app.
Many other good widgets are there for say Agendas, Tasks, Calendars, Twitter, Music Player controls - but I usually would rather just launch the full app instead of a stripped down widget.
Now some advantages that I can see for home screens/widgets: Having different things "open" at the same time (example: Having a 4x3 photo widget that rotates every 5 minutes with a 4x1 Music control so you can see both at the same time).
I can also see a small case for having a series of widgets on a different screen so you could easily slide from screen 1/4x4 Twitter widget to screen 2/4x4 Facebook, screen 3/4x4 music widget - and just constantly sliding back & forth instead of holding down the home button & switching back & forth between apps.
---
Just for reference, my current setup has the Calendar in Notification Bar app linked to an app called Organized Drawer. This lets me get to all my apps in a simple fashion. To get to my top apps, I currently use SwipePad - so I never have to go my home screen to launch apps.
I have 3 home screens. Center is Weather, Battery, Time, Date, Contact widget. Left screen is a 4x4 Agenda. Right screen is two Task widgets (one work, one home).
Overall, I rarely go there at all.
I also use Widget Locker. Keeping in mind that every time most people turn their phones on they see their lock screen, so in this case I can see making pretty screens with all the stuff I mentioned above (and shortcuts to common apps).
---
Anyway, not knocking the system, but is it me, or does everyone rarely actually use their home screen in real-life day to day usage?? Am I missing the boat here?