A homescreen from 14 years ago

Oh boy, here is a blast from the past. I was looking at my memories from Immich. Immich takes a simple approach, it surfaces photos you took on this date and month in past years, without curation. I like this approach over the curated experiences Google Photos tended to create. I do not need 12 photos of my dead cat on a random Tuesday, but maybe 3 I took 7 years ago would be fine.

Anyway, today there was a screenshot in my photos from 14 years ago. It took me down memory lane, so I thought I’d share.

Some thoughts on the various rows.

• Row 1 (Phone, Messages, Camera, Fahrenheit) Defaults, except for weather. I have no recollection of this app, but I am pretty sure the temperature was a hack they pulled off by using the notification badge to display the temperature.
• Row 2 (Settings, Clock, Todo.txt, Maps) Fairly boring. I never got into todo.txt but it is a great idea. My maps app is in the same basic spot on my current phone. Muscle memory for the win.
• Row 3 (Instagram, Facebook, Entertainment, Safari) The only interesting thing on this row is the Entertainment folder.
  • Rdio - Spotify Competitor that was bought by Pandora. It was much nicer than Spotify back then.
  • MPoD - A music player daemon controller. I had a decently fun streaming setup in my apartment
  • Pandora - Still around, but I maybe use it 1 time a year
  • Itunes - default
  • This American Life - They had to distribute an app for their podcast. I miss those days.
  • Photos - useful but default
  • iMovie - did anyone actually use this?
  • Roku - Still use this, though with their impending sale to Fox I am searching out alternatives
  • Kindle - Left this ecosystem several years ago, also I never enjoyed reading a book on my phone.
• Row 4 (Reminders, foursquare) - I am sure that reminders app was used sparingly. Foursquare though, I loved that social experience. Paired with a Twitter that could still feel like a small town, it made going out for drinks to win back your mayor badge something you probably did too often.
• Home Row - You know these were the most important apps.
  • 1Password - Still use it, still recommend it.
  • Mail icon - I have no idea what mail app this was.
  • Google Voice - I still cannot believe we used to have to listen to voicemails. I still keep my Google Voice account just for the transcription feature.
  • Fantastical (I think) - I think the 8 means this photo is actually dated incorrectly, and was captured the 8th instead of the 9th. Oh well. That badge was the same hack as the weather app used.
  • TweetBot - 3rd party clients and Twitter were conversation starters in those days.

Today I have an Android device, and looking through my photos it looks like I switched in February of 2014. If you are curious about what some of my daily apps are now, you can find my defaults here.