Friday, June 20, 2008

In The Attic

A recent conversation with a co-worker regarding the iPhone 3G got me thinking about the Home Screen layout.  As I was telling her about the new iPhone calling plan prices and it’s (supposed) lack of built-in SMS it made me realize, the SMS button, as well as others, are somewhat in the way.

With the ability to move home screen icons around as you wish, there is one missing component (in my opinion).  What if there are standard iPhone icons that you don’t use or need?  Sure, you could move them to another screen, creating an island of misfits, but is that the best use of your nine precious Home screen iterations?  That’s when it hit me.  The attic.

Pack it up and put it away.

Boxes seem to be the main object that fill peoples attics and more often than note, they’re filled with things that we don’t use often.  After looking at the home screen of the iPhone, some people may see just that; tiny boxes filled with things they don’t use or need.  You could throw them away, but who would want toss out such treasured memories as stocks, SMS, or that whiz-bang calculator?  Why not put them in a location that doesn’t cause them to get in the way.

Movin’ on up.

When you make your home screen icons dance, you’ll notice that you can drag them from side-to-side, creating a new screen, or down into the “dock” area.  As they say, the only direction to go is up.  Why not create an attic for icons?  If they are needed in the future, let the user pull them back down and if not, leave them to collect dust.  Now where did I put those photos…?