My home screen from 2015 on my iPhone 6s Plus.

I tend to focus most of my app usage into the built in apps, just because they’re so good. Yes, there are more feature rich apps available, but they are bloated and don’t work the way that I like. Also, there is no better syncing between software on Apple hardware than Apple software.

So that means Calendar is my calendar. Clock is my alarms app. Wallet is for Pay and passes. Settings is obvious, and on my home screen because I go into settings enough. I check the App Store about once every other day. Maps is my mapping app (works great for me, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ). I use reminders for my to do list. Photos is on my home screen because I use iCloud Photo Library and I love it. Camera is there because it’s still the best iOS camera app. Activity and Health are on the home screen because I use my Watch to track my fitness, and I like the way that they look and function (best health tracking apps I’ve used, and I’ve used quite a few). Then comes iCloud Drive, which used to be Dropbox until this year. Truth be told, Dropbox is way more powerful, but it feels like a virus on the Mac (seriously, try uninstalling it), so I opted to switch, and I haven’t had problems so far. Then weather, which used to be Dark Sky, until I fee tired of the constant location use. I’ll probably switch back, but who knows. I use News as my RSS reader that also can follow topics, and it’s great. It’s the best combination of Feedly and Flipboard, or Flipboard with way fewer ads. Way fewer. Lastly, I use Music for my downloaded music (I stopped streaming in 2015) and Podcasts for my large library of subscribed podcasts. I like Overcast, but Podcasts just works better for me. I also have the remote recently returned because of the update that allows it to work with my 4th gen TV.

The home row is Mail, Messages, Safari, and Tweetbot. These are my top apps, most likely (I don’t actually time my app usage). They’re at least the most important.

I’ve tried basically every email app on iOS, and the only app that looks good, functions well, has a matching Mac and iPad app, without making privacy sacrifices is Mail. Hate if you wish, but trust me, I’ve tried others.

iMessage is great: revolutionary, even. Nothing else can match it. That is all.

Safari is the best mobile browser on iOS. Besides having no privacy concerns, it also allows content blockers, of which I use a few. It’s so fast and so lean.

I use Tweetbot a lot. Like a lot, a lot. Best Twitter app by far. The killer feature is timeline syncing across devices. The reason for Tweetbot over Twitterrific (or others) is that its interface and its icon are not ugly.

I use Mint to keep track of my budgets. I use 1password to store all my complex passwords (and you should too). I have a tumblr, which is my main interface for blog content, but it’s increasingly irrelevant these days as Yahoo slowly destroys it.

I have snapchat. I have very few people on snapchat. I get it, but I don’t use it frequently. I guess I’m not millennial enough. Also, the huge privacy concerns are, well, concerning.

GroupMe is critical on a college campus, which is where I am. Everyone uses it. It’s essentially a low powered Slack designed for not business. It’s like Facebook Messenger: it’s not a good app, but everyone has it so you have to too.