What’s on your home screen, Michael Hell?

Today is the third installment of an occasional series we’re calling “What’s on your home screen?”, where we ask Nokia users how they are using their Nokia Lumia phones in interesting ways.
This time around, we are going international by profiling Michael Hell, a writer for Fone Arena, and resident of Austria who’s known for his unique perspective on all things Nokia.

 So, Michael, what’s on your homescreen?

Trying a new mobile experience always gives me this feeling of curiosity and excitement. Having never tried Windows Phone before Nokia’s adoption of the OS, I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first one, the Lumia 800. Could this be the right way? I got myself familiar with Windows Phone, ploughed through the apps selection and the functionality and well.. I was surprised how well Windows Phone suits me. So, what’s happening on my home screen?

Here we go:

From left to right, top to bottom:

Phone: Funny enough, it’s not the most-used function on my Lumia 900, that’s why it’s not placed in the two middle rows, which I think are the easiest to reach. Can we please have predictive dialing built in? Thanks!

Weather View: I’m always trying different weather apps, at the time of this writing, Weather View was my app of choice. Looks nice, functions well.

My girlfriend’s tile: Hey, we’re in love, so why not dedicate her a tile? Apart from that, i get notifications about new activities on her Facebook page etc

Me Tile: Probably my most favourite feature about Windows Phone: fast status updates to Facebook and Twitter, notifications with options to immediately reply (fantastic for quick conversations without having to open an app), check-in’s and more. This is brilliant for people like myself, who love hanging out at social networks.

Messaging: got my SMS messages, got my Facebook messages, got my Windows Live messenger. If the writer goes offline, I can switch over to SMS with just one tap. Lovely.

People: One of the best points about Windows Phone, as the contacts are not just a list of people, there’s all kind of informations of my friends’ social networks, photos and more. Fantastic.

Unified inbox 1 – Biz: just as the title says, two inboxes for the price of one!

Unified inbox 2 – Private: the second unified inbox, containing my Gmail- and Windows Live-account

Second screen:



Facebook: Staying in touch with my Facebook friends with the official Facebook app

Rowi: In my opinion still the best Twitter client. great support, feature-rich and adopts the Metro design nicely! Furthermore, a little counter on the Live Tile shows unread direct messages and mentions.

Settings: A shortcut to the settings menu, just to do some quick adjustments

Check-In Now (4th & mayor): 4th & mayor is a nice foursquare app, with the Check-In Now-tile immediately bringing up all nearby venues. Definitely check this app out!

SurfCube: My current browser of choice is SurfCube. The browser comes with a very unique cube design, which opens opened tabs etc in a 3-dimensional way. Maybe not entirely useful, but a cool idea nonetheless.

Photosynth: As an ambitious amateur photographer, Photosynth was a logical app to get for me. Doing panoromas not only horizontally, but also vertically is a very nice idea – and it works!

Nokia Drive: For me more important than Nokia Maps itself, and I still think the best navigation app on any OS. Especially nice on the big Lumia 900 display.

Creative Studio: My current app of choice when it comes to pimping my photos with some nice filters/effects.

Third screen:

Calendar tile: a shortcut to the calendar app, as well as the current events being displayed

Pictures: of course, all my pictures are in there. Having a random photo appear on the big tile every now and then makes it a little bit more personal.

Music + Videos: pretty much explains itself

Marketplace: Apps, apps, apps!

Nokia Maps: always handy for some quick location checks, or if I’m simply on the search for a decent restaurant near me.

WhatsApp: While not being perfect (I thoroughly miss writing to people directly from the contacts app) I am certainly glad WhatsApp is on Windows Phone. A majority of friends are using it, just to save their free SMS per month. One of my must have apps.

Wi-Fi and Data tiles: two tiles of an app called WP Shortcut Tiles. This will not directly toggle the desired setting, but will open the corresponding menu quickly.

So there we are, this is my current home screen on my Nokia Lumia 900. Of course, this is changing on a weekly basis, as I am constantly discovering cool new apps which deserve a place at the front!