Here’s My Home Screen, or How I Learned to Live Simply on the iPad

There are 500,000 apps – and counting – for the iPad.

Everyone has their favorites, as I discovered while speaking to a group of trial lawyers for an upcoming seminar. The attorneys in big cities (i.e., those with reliable courtroom WiFi networks) use Dropbox for case management, which requires an Internet connection. The country lawyers prefer GoodReader, which stores documents locally and can be accessed in rural courts that lack broadband.

Here’s my home screen (click to enlarge), so you can see what apps I use every day on the iPad.

On my main screen, you’ll find productivity apps such as GoodReader (case folders and mobile law library) and Notability (take handwritten notes):

I keep the most-used apps in the home bar. To add an app to the home bar, press, hold, and drag it into place.

On my second screen, you’ll find social apps such as FeedlerPro RSS (follow law blogs), Instapaper (gather articles from the web), and various newspapers:

That’s it, no clutter. The goal is to develop expertise with a few apps rather than assemble an unlimited app library.

I recommend finding your favorite apps (whatever they are) and sticking with them. You want to avoid technology overload. The quickest path to improving your productivity with an iPad is to choose the apps that work best and discard the rest.