Disclaimer: I don’t have an iPhone X. Instagram and Snapchat are the obvious apps, but what else do I have on my phone? I don’t know about you, but I’m always interested to see what’s on other peoples’ phones. How they organize apps and which ones they use in general. Consider yourself lucky because I’m going to show you just exactly what’s on mine!
Lock screen
My lock screen is fairly simple, just a picture of some snowy trees. I don’t like winter all that much, but this shot seemed pretty enough to be made a lock screen background. I always put my battery on low power mode even if it’s as high as 90%. I just always want to conserve battery. My least favourite thing to see is when my wifi has only one or two bars out of three. Fun fact: my favourite day of the week is Thursday.
Home Page
This page is dedicated to all the pre-installed iPhone apps. First off, there’s Messages where I constantly lose games of 8ball and cup pong. I don’t usually text many people on it because I find Snapchat a better texting app, but I do use it sometimes. Next is Calendar, which is very self-explanatory. I put all my upcoming events in the calendar app like every other normal person. Reminders to write blogs, test dates, etc. Camera, I don’t think I need to say much about what it is. I don’t like taking pictures with the camera app because I take them on Snapchat. Also, my phone has low storage so I don’t like having a ton of photos in my camera roll. The Reminders app isn’t one I use frequently, only when I need to remember something very important or when I’m packing (because I create lists with it). I’m going to skip the settings app because everyone knows what it is. Health is a waste of space on my phone since I rarely use it. Time to time I’ll check it to see how many steps I’ve taken but other than that, it’s collecting dust on my home page. Contacts and Weather are pretty useful apps I use daily, App Store is essential, FaceTime is whatever, Notes is actually kinda important and I use it a lot. I mainly use Clock for the stopwatch or when I’m travelling to see the different times. The only thing I hate about the Calculator is when I want to turn it sideways to input more numbers but the screen won’t turn. Maps is really useful and so is Find iPhone, but Wallet is honestly the worst app installed on my phone. First of all, I don’t even use it, it takes up space and I can’t even delete it!
On the bottom, I have Phone, which is obviously necessary, and Photos, which is also just as valuable and needs to be easily accessed. If you’ve read my other blogs, you probably know that I’m an avid fan of Netflix, thus earning its place on the bottom next to Snapchat, the next most important app. Snapchat I use on a regular basis. I am loving the new update that lets you have different fonts and gifs, but I’m only starting to get used to the new layout. Netflix is literally the best thing that ever existed. I’m in the middle of a million and one shows right now and I’ve still got so many titles in my list. Netflix is the one thing that I’ll never get tired of, like, “are you still watching?” uhm, of course, where else would I be? I’m in the middle of Gossip Girl, Girls Incarcerated, Shameless, Suits, Riverdale, Anne, The End of the F***ing World, and Bob Ross. STILL, I want to make room for Babylon Berlin, The Keepers, TURN: Washington’s Spies, 1922, Dark, Land Girls, The Office, RuPaul’s Drag Race, WW2 In Colour and various documentaries, but I just don’t think I’m going to have that kind of time! By the time I’ll have watched everything on my list, I’d be 60.
First Page
Safari: I’m not a big fan of Safari. I’d much rather prefer the Google app, but seeing as how you can’t delete Safari, having two search engine apps on your phone is a waste of storage to me. That’s the only reason I don’t have Google on my phone. If I could get rid of Safari, I’d definitely do that and download a better app.
Tumblr: For those of you who don’t know what Tumblr is, it’s basically a social media platform for blogs. You can create one of whatever you’d like and you can post/reblog pictures, gifs, videos, texts, etc. It’s not a blog like YAA, but much rather like Instagram where you have a profile and followers and messages. You can design your blog however you want and post totally random things according to your interests. I mainly have it because there are hilarious memes and beautiful photography. It’s like Twitter but better, plus there are screenshots of funny tweets on Tumblr, so I don’t even need Twitter. (I personally just don’t like Twitter’s design and organization; it’s confusing and kind of messy in my opinion.)
Calgary PL: That’s just the Calgary Public Library, I have it to keep track of when upcoming books are due and to follow up on my holds.
Gmail: I deleted the Mail app for Gmail because I think Gmail has a much neater organization. Also, you can have multiple accounts signed in in Gmail, and I really make good use of that.
YouTube: I love YouTube. I watch it all the time (not as much as Netflix, but still). Buzzfeed Unsolved is one of my favourite things to binge watch on YouTube (it’s also on Amazon Prime now, but I’ll talk about it later). My “watch later” list is always full of makeup tutorials, Liza Koshy videos, Meredith Foster’s vlogs, and various Buzzfeed videos.
Starbucks: I haven’t used this app in the longest time because I’m proud to say I’ve been overcoming my Starbucks addiction from the 8/9th grade. I still have it to keep an eye on my Starbucks cards’ balances and my rewards.
Duolingo: The eyes of that green owl haunt me every time I open my phone because I tell myself I’m going to learn German and Italian but I never do. I even get e-mails from Duolingo reminding me to continue working on my German but I don’t and it makes me feel so guilty. I do go on it and practice German sometimes, but nowhere near the schedule Duolingo expects me to have. I don’t want to lose my progress, so I don’t think I’m going to delete it anytime soon. Don’t worry, I’ll still use it.
Music: I don’t have much music in the actual music app, but I do have a One Direction album and a 5 Seconds of Summer album downloaded. I don’t listen to those albums much anymore because they’re old. (One’s from 2013 and the other is from 2014.)
Instagram: Fairly self-explanatory. I mainly go on the explore page rather than my home page since there’s more to see on the explore page. My favourite types of posts consist of slime videos, textposts/memes and throwback vines.
VSCO: VSCO is practically an artsier Instagram. It’s also an editing app for pictures. I do most of my editing on VSCO before I send the picture off to Instagram.
Prime Video: Amazon Prime contains an abundance of nice movies/tv shows. I think it’s kind of underrated. I’ve been rewatching a couple episodes of Buzzfeed Unsolved here and there. As for shows, right now I’ve finished watching The Man In The High Castle and gave up on Mr. Robot, so I was thinking of starting The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel when I get the time to.
Spotify: I love, love, love Spotify! I don’t have premium so I get ads often, but it’s tolerable. I have so many playlists on it and I LOVE their Discover Weekly and Daily Mix playlists. Spotify is a win.
Translate: Being a French Immersion student, having Google translate is vital. They say don’t use it, but I do and 90% the translation is correct. I’ve found that it works best with small sentences, but always read the translated sentence to yourself after to ensure it makes sense.
Sandbox: I think this game is a little overrated, but I still play it. It’s a colour-by-number game where all the pictures are pixilated. I find it quite calming to play and they frequently update the app with new pictures every day so you’ll never run out of anything to colour.
Buzzfeed: I don’t care what you say, I love Buzzfeed. I’m in it mostly for their quizzes (they’re so much fun please try them) but I read their posts sometimes as well.
SkyVPN: Most schools block social apps such as Instagram and Snapchat, but everybody always finds a VPN to unblock it. Though schools often block VPN apps as well, there are simply too many out there. As of now, SkyVPN is the only one working at my school, so let’s hope they don’t block it.
Dictionary: I’m in English this term and I’m always in need of a portable dictionary/thesaurus.
Second Page
This is my last slide filled with apps I don’t like enough to put on the first page. It consists of games, Followers + (the app that lets you know who’s unfollowed you on Instagram; lets you catch those snakes) and Bitmoji (an avatar basically) for Snapchat.
Games
Word Cookies: They have scrambled up letters and you have to make different words with them.
Toy Blast: It’s kind of like Candy Crush in the sense that there are levels and the fact that most of their game designs are the same. I’m on level 500 right now, so I think it’s much easier than Candy Crush.
Puzzledom: Puzzledom is essentially a large collection of all sorts of puzzles. It’s like 10 apps in one.
I don’t have a lot of games because I find that I don’t really play them a lot.
That was my entire phone!