An Android Tablet Home Screen Setup on Honeycomb

About the writer

The author had used Android since the early days of the Rogers launch, starting with the HTC Magic and moving later to the Samsung Galaxy S Captivate. Several family members and friends were converted along the way. The tablet was the newest purchase.

The five screens

Screen 1: Social

A Twitter feed stretched to full height, widgets for Google+ and Buzz, and shortcuts for a Facebook client, LinkedIn, Latitude, Talk and WordPress. Two search apps, SoundHound and Goggles, sat alongside.

Screen 2: Distractions

Media players along the bottom (music, video, YouTube and Gallery) and games across the top, such as Angry Birds, Stupid Zombie and OpenSudoku, plus a piano app for a child.

Screen 3: Home

The Asus weather widget, calendar, to-do list, Gmail, email and the browser. Nothing unusual, which is the point of a home page.

Screen 4: Reading and files

Readers for books, comics and feeds, mapping apps, local file managers, cloud storage clients such as SugarSync, Dropbox and Box, an FTP app for an office NAS and an office suite.

Screen 5: Almost empty

Shortcuts for messaging contacts. The writer noted that Honeycomb gives a 7 by 8 grid per screen, so five screens leave many empty spaces compared with a phone’s denser pages.

Ideas to borrow

• Group apps by purpose, one theme per screen.
• Keep the middle screen simple and useful.
• Use a dark background to hide screen flaws.