What the iPhone needs next – organization

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I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for the iPhone 3.0. I’m sincerely hoping by then that we have an improvement on the organization of the iPhone Apps – because they are seriously starting to get out of hand.

I currently have 7 of the 9 available screens filled to the brim with iPhone Apps of all kinds, and most of them, I don’t really want to be rid of. It would be nice if I could organize them in a more user-friendly way then just swiping from one screen to the next.

I think what I’d like to see on the iPhone is a version of “Stacks”.

Think about it, you could hold your finger down on a blank area of the screen for a few seconds, and bring up a menu asking you if you wanted to create a new Stack, you do – so you say “yes”. Then a Stack appears that you name. After you have done that you hold down on your icons until they get giggly, and begin to drag the ones you want into your Stack.

For example, you could have a Stack for your Business Apps, or for your Games. When you were finished, you’d just hit the home button, then all those icons could be condensed within that Stack. When you wanted to access them they could fan out like a Stack on OS X, or even as a separate screen all together.

Obviously the concept is pretty rudimentary. We’re basically talking about folders here – but it would be a nice addition to the OS that I’d like to see in the near future.

What about you?

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Kokou Adzo

Kokou Adzo is a stalwart in the tech journalism community, has been chronicling the ever-evolving world of Apple products and innovations for over a decade. As a Senior Author at Apple Gazette, Kokou combines a deep passion for technology with an innate ability to translate complex tech jargon into relatable insights for everyday users.

7 thoughts on “What the iPhone needs next – organization

  1. agreed… I also have 7 pages of aps and it makes finding what I want difficult. Even if I try to “organize” them it all just gets messed up when I add new ones. Because then I gotta get an ap from page 7 to page 2 or 3, which shifts everything else around and messes up my little world. I’d like to see in organization interface within iTunes. That way you can sort and categorize from there, much quicker, then it sync back to the phone.

  2. A similar solution to Stacks for lailbroken phones exists now, as does “Categories”, which basically is an App to put all those other apps in folders.

    I understand those not wanting to jailbreak for sure, but I bet Apple will have something like this coming, I was hoping in the next update.

  3. Or, if we’re going with desktop OS X concepts – what about contuining the existing iPhone’s implementation of Spaces and adding the y dimension? Swipe left or right for your business apps, down for your games, etc. Suddenly 7 pages of apps becomes 2 rows of pages, or better yet, an up-down left-right ‘cross’ shape going two screens in each direction.

    If the iPhone OS truly is OS X, either (or both) should be easily buildable. Require the user to enable them in Settings so as to avoid any new-user confusion; prompt the user “would you like to enable this feature?” once they’ve added enough apps to need a 2nd or 3rd screen.

  4. I keep my apps in alphabetical order, when I add a new app, all I do is drag it to the edge of the screen and instead of having everything shift over I just quickly flicky finger away and towards the next screen, and the page will slide over without shifting all the apps. The trick is to not flick out too far or everything will shift.

    I would like to see universal horizontal support along the entire phone, homescreen included, I like the layout and it’s much easier to read and navigate around a landscaped view. Further, I like the idea of swiping to screens up/down and left/right. Pretty cool to imagine. If they would increase the amount of pages we’re allowed to have, and let us backup our app data on our own computers but OTA so we can download apps when we need them I’d re-fall in love with my phone again. Also, if they would complete safari and let me open a link in a new tab by holding a fnger on it, I would feel whole.

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