BenWoodall(dot)Com

All My Junk — In One Place

My girlfriend, Holly, bought a Droid last month after I told her how much I liked mine.  I really like that even though she’s not too into tech and geek type stuff, she really puts her phone to good use.  But the one thing I can’t stand is all the wasted real estate she has on her Android desktop.  One desktop.  That’s it.

I ran into some old friends of mine this weekend, who happened to have both bought Android phones the week before.  We had fun going over new apps to get and new services they should try.  But just like Holly… they both only used one desktop.  The waste!  I was actually offended and told them they weren’t using their phones right.  Sure it might be a personal preference, but why wouldn’t you use it?

I’ve been a Gnome (Linux Xwin Interface) user for about 12 years now and one of the nicest things about most Linux desktop environments is the multiple desktops.  I’m pretty crazy when it comes to how I organize my desktop.  I usually like one desktop to have absolutely nothing on it.  No reason really.  Just aesthetics.  The others are usually organized in some way or fashion for usability.  One page for games, another for publishing, maybe even a whole desktop devoted to website bookmarks.

It’s no different on my Droid.  I have everything mapped out in a certain way that helps me navigate.  The home (middle) screen is devoted to mostly phone related activies.  Contacts, messaging, etc… as well as a few other things that a smart phone should be used for, like my browser, Gmail, and Google maps.  Left screen is mostly widgets, with a few select user control apps while the right is all the social and work related apps.

I know that the app slider is easy to use, but really…why wouldn’t you use all of that space?  I hear that Android 2.1 bumps it up to 5 desktops!  I don’t even know if I can fill that!  I”m really excited to see what else 2.1 brings.  I know it has the interactive (battery draining) wallpapers.  I can’t wait to see what people do with that.  There are also some 3rd party desktop theme apps that look pretty good.

What does your Android desktop look like?  Feel free to post pictures or comments.  To learn how to take screenshots, visit the Know Your Cell “Droid Screenshot” page.

~Ben