My 2020 Homescreen
The last time I shared my home screen it was 2016, so I thought it would be interesting to see what things have changed over 4 years.
One of the first things that pops out is how outdated the 2016 home screen looks with the general look and feel; just shows how far Android has come along since then, even down to consistency with the icon shapes.
It has largely been a reduction of the social apps I used and how over time that activity has gone over to messaging apps with a select group of people. I do have a second screen with apps that I don’t use everyday but refer to from time to time such as Yelp, Cisco Headphones, Taxi apps etc. If there is a significant change in the home screen going forward, I would predict its the removal of Gmail. Email has been reduced to just a place where I get notifications about deliveries, appointments etc and its no longer a place where I have conversations with friends and family, but lets see how it turns out.
What Was Removed
- The Social folder - I removed Google+ ( and so did Google 😉 ), Facebook , Twitter & Instagram. While I still use Facebook, Twitter & Instagram, its no where near my usage of 2016 - 2017 that I needed apps full time, so I just with chrome tabs that I load when I feel like checking in.
- Foursquare & Swarm - Once the gaming aspect was split in to Swarm, the fun was just not there and eventually my friends stopped using it, reviews & tips on Foursquare weren’t as good as what I could find on Yelp & Google Maps. I now just use the location history on Google Maps to keep track of that information.
- Home Control Folder - I moved over to OpenHAB since I felt Wink wasn’t going anywhere with their hub. Turned out to be the right decision as they faced a lot reliability issues, funding issues and a poorly thought out subscription plan.The new home automation runs everything locally, it is exceptionally fast with support for a lot of smart home devices.
- Yatse - A remote for Kodi, the excellent home theater software. I ditched my HTPC and went with the Nvidia Shield 2017. With streaming services I didn’t continue using Kodi on it and when I do want to play media from my NAS, I simply use VLC.
- Inbox by Google - I really enjoyed Inbox, but I saw the tea leaves when the application was not receiving periodic updates and I also experienced missed email notifications. After missing a few important emails it was back to Gmail and then Google ultimately sunset it as well.
- Google Play Music ( replaced by YouTube Music, but no longer on the home screen)
- OneDrive - Stopped using it when Microsoft decided to remove all of the free storage upgrades that they had given as rewards.
- Snapseed - I was barely using it and Google Photos got a lot of advanced editing features that it made no sense to keep it around.
- Facebook Messenger & Google Hangouts - My conversations have moved primarily to WhatsApp, Signal & RCS/SMS, so they were gone as well.
New Additions
- Google Duo - 2020 increased video calling and Duo is perfect, its cross platform, e2e and has excellent video/audio quality when compared to the others.
- Google Fit - Simple app to keep track of steps and other health data
- Google Podcasts - Simple podcast app that just works and syncs across the web & my home hubs. Lack of a commute due to 2020 has dramatically decreased my podcast listening.
- Google Pay - Contactless payments is fast and convenient versus the chip readers on terminals.
- Security Folder - Bitwarden a great open-source cross platform password manager and Aegis an open source 2FA app, with the ability to import/export tokens.
- Firefox Focus - Its fast, doesn’t leave a trace and a great alternate browser.
- Waze - I also have Google Maps on there but there are times I feel Waze offers faster routes and when there is a slowdown or some event on the road, it updates faster with the reason.