What’s on your Lumia 900 homescreen, Mike Macias?

Published by Jason Harris on May 4, 2012

 Nokia Lumia 900

SUNNYVALE, CA, United States – Nokia Conversations is more than Nokia’s main weblog, it’s a community. In order to find out how other bloggers are using the Nokia Lumia 900, we have reached out to some of our favorite bloggers to ask them: what’s on your homescreen?

Todays community member we’re highlighting is Mike Macias, Editor-in-Chief of the The Mobile Fanatics, a long time favorite blog of any Nokia follower or fan.

So, Mike, what’s on your home screen?

Mike Macias:

Mike Macias

As a longtime Symbian user who was comfortable with widgets and multiple homescreens, I was a bit reluctant to give Windows Phone a shot. I saw screenshots of the Windows Phone operating system when it first came out and initially felt like a single page of tiles was too restricted and simple.

But once I tried Windows Phone on the Nokia Lumia 800 I was surprised at how useful these squares can be.

Because of my great experience I had with the Lumia 800, I decided to keep Windows Phone as my main device and now I use the Nokia Lumia 900 for AT&T full time.

Live Tiles from great 3rd party apps

Windows Phone has some great built-in widgets that come preloaded on the Nokia Lumia 900. Most of these are self-explanatory and can be tested out on Nokia’s Facebook demo page for Windows Phone. 

What I really want to get into is the good stuff; third-party applications!

Mike Macias

Now let me give you a little bit of information before I start the list. Some of these tiles are simply shortcuts to the application. No frills or thrills. But Windows Phone has a great feature for app developers which allows you to pin specific areas inside your application to the homescreen.

Now let’s see which 3rd party apps are important enough to be on my homescreen.

  • NextGen Reader – This is my favorite Google Reader app for Windows Phone for many reasons besides the live tile. But save those reasons for another day. We’re here to talk about homescreens! I can pin specific folders to the homescreen and even single feeds. 
  • Toggle – This application allows me to pin tiles that take me to specific connectivity settings of my phone. Other shortcuts you can pin include data, bluetooth, airplane mode, and reminders. Toggle is highly useful and free in the marketplace.
  • INRIX – This is the traffic application that I mentioned at the beginning of this section. Living in Southern California makes quick access to these map views extremely helpful. My “trip to work” map view is pinned to the homescreen so that when I launch the app I don’t have to navigate around or zoom in and out to see the freeway I’m going to travel on. INRIX is very accurate for traffic conditions and has many more features to check out. You can find INRIX free in the Marketplace.
  • iHeartRadio – This is another app which I don’t just pin to the homescreen as a basic shortcut. I was able to pin a specific radio station which I listen to more than once per day. When I touch this tile I’m able to start my favorite radio station instantly! The great thing about iHeartRadio is that the app uses default music controls in Windows Phone so that I can pause and start the station whenever I want, even from the lock screen.
  • Fandora – This is a Pandora app for Windows Phone that works great. I have only been using it for a few weeks but I absolutely love that I can pin my favorite Pandora station to the homescreen. 
  • SuperTimer – If you’re looking for an advanced timer application for your Nokia Lumia device look no further.  I can setup multiple timers with specific functions. I have my “Laundry” timer pinned to the homescreen. The instant I tap it the countdown timer starts from 1 hour and 10 minutes. When the time is up an alarm goes off! SuperTimer runs in the background so you can do other tasks and your timer won’t stop.
  • OneNote – If you need a note-taking app for Windows Phone look no further than your Office icon that comes preloaded on the phone. OneNote by Microsoft lets you sync notes in the cloud so that they are accessible from a computer, phone, and tablet. I have a shortcut pinned to my homescreen that allows me to start a new note instantly. It’s saved to the cloud while I work so I don’t have to worry about hitting a “save” button every few minutes.
  • Flashlight-X – A basic flashlight app for Windows Phone that turns on the dual-LED flashlight the instant I tap the tile. Very handy when you need to find your keyhole in the dark!
  • 4th & Mayor – Need to check-in to Foursquare quickly? Tapping this tile quickly brings up a list of nearby locations that I can check-in to. 

That’s it for the tiles that are deep-linked to specific tasks and functions within applications. The rest are a few more apps that I like to have quick access to and are pinned to my homescreen.

ESPN ScoreCenter 
WeatherView 
Nokia Drive 
Microsoft Office 
WordPress 
Gchat+ 

Plus a couple of bookmark links to my favorite sites.

Comments

  • Anonymous

    I like more symbian style. Hope Nokia release lumia design (hardware) but with symbian carla on it

    • jill dasani

      You mean to say the N9 Design…

      I am on for it !!

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WF5RDUGP22TCVJZLOWFIKFE3FQ Alin

    Elop killed NOKIA’s innovation strategy with Qt and MeeGo while RIM is fighting and improving its OS, search the youtube for BlackBerry 10, is like MeeGo, very disruptive!!! They did not abandon their platform, RIM = BlackBerry OS and NOKIA = Symbian + Maemo/MeeGo/Harmattan, you just don’t abondon your platform because you are sinonime with it!

    • Anonymous

      Yes, lets hope they will make also proper Hardware. Something like the Nokia N950 with querty keyboard would be great.
      WebOS looked also great but failed because of the cheap plastic phones HP provided.

      QNX is sadly not Linux, but with Qt and qml on top and all the Android and Flash applications easily portable it sounds to me like a good alternative after my beloved Nokia N9.

      But it would be sadly the first hardware from a different company. :-(

      • http://www.davidar.org Jonathan Davidar

         Yes, I agree with you! The Nokia N950 with a full office suite and the range of brilliant linux apps will be a killer. But what good is a dead killer phone with potential killer apps especially when the killer is the innovator. It will go down in history as a case study of idiocy and insular marketing combined with the spectacular setting the platform afire speech. It started burning and going down and shares and sales alike started dipping after that. I wonder what kind of status reports and rationale are filed at the Nokia Board, and how and why they keep quiet with all this Elopese. Brilliant products, the Nokia phones, even the much maligned Symbian ones. Very efficient at multi-tasking and memory management, and were lower speccd as they didn’t need to be Ferrari engines in bumblebee bodies. But such is the poetic injustice of life when the good fade and the ugly reign. Come on, Nokia, listen to your fans and those who put their money on your products, year after year. Don’t speculate on the carrier-dominated US market where most consumers don’t even realize the power of choice. I have tried getting an N950 but no luck and that is sad. Would have been a brilliant and much feted successor to the E7 if it had been given a fighting chance. Why Nokia, why do you persistently ignore all those who comprise your user base? I don’t know… and, I seriously don’t know about you, and whether you even care to capitalize on those who eagerly await your disruptive technologies. I hope someone with the power to act is listening.

    • Anonymous

      Let’s hope Nokia will soon enought realize what former and current customer want’s and not what only some customer in the U.S. and Finnland would like to buy.
      Currently they have abadoned the complete rest of the world and the most of their former customers only because of their U.S. strategy. In my opionion it will get very hard to fix the already made damage. 
      Lets hope they have still enought qualified staff.

      • Anonymous

        Their US strategy is stupid anyway. As an American, I can tell you nobody here cares about Windows Phone, much less what Nokia is trying to accomplish with it. And this is despite all the primetime network TV ads and all the astroturfers/AT&T employees posting fake reviews on Amazon.

        Elop needs to go. Now.

        • http://profile.yahoo.com/KP47C5DDNPY2YS75QVPYFWJ5BM Chris

          Not every American. I love my Windows Nokia.

      • Anonymous

        Their US strategy is stupid anyway. As an American, I can tell you nobody here cares about Windows Phone, much less what Nokia is trying to accomplish with it. And this is despite all the primetime network TV ads and all the astroturfers/AT&T employees posting fake reviews on Amazon.

        Elop needs to go. Now.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Zahl/1670371040 Steven Zahl

    NOKIA Shareholders are suing the Company for bad financial results.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Steven-Zahl/1670371040 Steven Zahl

    NOKIA Shareholders are suing the Company for bad financial results.

  • Anonymous

    INRIX seems like a cool and useful app.  Noted, and will add it to my ‘to check out’ list!

  • Anonymous

    Ha, it’s funny because all WP7 home screens are the same thing. There’s no such thing as customization on Winblows Phone.

  • Anonymous

    Ha, it’s funny because all WP7 home screens are the same thing. There’s no such thing as customization on Winblows Phone.

  • http://www.davidar.org Jonathan Davidar

     Yes, I agree with you all! The Nokia N950 with a full office suite and the range of brilliant linux apps will be a killer. But what good is a dead killer phone with potential killer apps especially when the killer is the innovator. It will go down in history as a case study of idiocy and insular marketing combined with the spectacular setting the platform afire speech. It started burning and going down and shares and sales alike started dipping after that. I wonder what kind of status reports and rationale are filed at the Nokia Board, and how and why they keep quiet with all this Elopese. Brilliant products, the Nokia phones, even the much maligned Symbian ones. Very efficient at multi-tasking and memory management, and were lower speccd as they didn’t need to be Ferrari engines in bumblebee bodies. But such is the poetic injustice of life when the good fade and the ugly reign. Come on, Nokia, listen to your fans and those who put their money on your products, year after year. Don’t speculate on the carrier-dominated US market where most consumers don’t even realize the power of choice. I have tried getting an N950 but no luck and that is sad. Would have been a brilliant and much feted successor to the E7 if it had been given a fighting chance. Why Nokia, why do you persistently ignore all those who comprise your user base? I don’t know… and, I seriously don’t know about you, and whether you even care to capitalize on those who eagerly await your disruptive technologies. I hope someone with the power to act is listening.

  • http://www.davidar.org Jonathan Davidar

     Yes, I agree with you all! The Nokia N950 with a full office suite and the range of brilliant linux apps will be a killer. But what good is a dead killer phone with potential killer apps especially when the killer is the innovator. It will go down in history as a case study of idiocy and insular marketing combined with the spectacular setting the platform afire speech. It started burning and going down and shares and sales alike started dipping after that. I wonder what kind of status reports and rationale are filed at the Nokia Board, and how and why they keep quiet with all this Elopese. Brilliant products, the Nokia phones, even the much maligned Symbian ones. Very efficient at multi-tasking and memory management, and were lower speccd as they didn’t need to be Ferrari engines in bumblebee bodies. But such is the poetic injustice of life when the good fade and the ugly reign. Come on, Nokia, listen to your fans and those who put their money on your products, year after year. Don’t speculate on the carrier-dominated US market where most consumers don’t even realize the power of choice. I have tried getting an N950 but no luck and that is sad. Would have been a brilliant and much feted successor to the E7 if it had been given a fighting chance. Why Nokia, why do you persistently ignore all those who comprise your user base? I don’t know… and, I seriously don’t know about you, and whether you even care to capitalize on those who eagerly await your disruptive technologies. I hope someone with the power to act is listening.

  • steelicon

    Elop. Can you read this from here? I suggest you read this.

    • Anonymous

      Nokia’s slogan: Connecting People
      WP7′s slogan: Glance and go

      Oh, the irony…

    • Anonymous

      Nokia’s slogan: Connecting People
      WP7′s slogan: Glance and go

      Oh, the irony…

  • http://twitter.com/bronzekid91 Maximilian Hernandez

    Truth of the matter is that Nokia is amazing, as a long time fan im sticking with them , Windows phone 7.5 now , windows phone 8 later , no matter how many cry babies sob over their crappy os (symbian) , Microsoft and Nokia are here to stay, and this is ONLY the beggining ;) 

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