The iPhone OCD Thread

[Savage]

There was a similar thread made about a week ago but it leaned more toward hardware related stuff (such as keeping the phone fingerprint-free). Here, I'm referring mainly to software related stuff (organization, etc.).

Let's talk about the stuff that bothers you, you absolutely need to do, or whatever it may be that is fitting for a thread like this. I'm interested to hear what everyone else does and doesn't do with their iPhone.

For me, I...

• cannot have applications on my phone that I don't use
• must have my apps in the order I put them (meaning if I were forced to change the way it is, I would REALLY hate my phone)
• really don't like having a page that doesn't have a full row of apps on the bottommost row
• do not want to jailbreak my phone because of how messy/ugly/unofficial I feel it becomes
• LOVE browsing through the "Post your iOS4 home screen" thread because about 80% of them make me cringe at how gross/bad they are (which is fun since it's not my phone)
• can't have anything from my iTunes library on my phone that is not at least of VBR quality, must have high-quality artwork (for cover flow), and must be perfectly filled out (name, artist, album, etc.) (unfortunately my library is about 50% perfect and 50% a total mess still)
• often close out of apps on the multitasking bar and reboot my phone
• have my contacts filled out with all fields properly when applicable (well, to an extent)
• hate when I hate the name of an app but don't have the ability to change it (e.g. Bank of America's app is called BofA - gross!)
• kind of hate the look of folders but use them anyway
• anything less than 4 apps on the dock kills me for some reason (especially when there is just a single folder)

Okay, I'm not really as bad as I probably sound from the list. But I want to have a fun/silly/bizarre discussion so I added whatever I could come up with for myself, even if it's really insignificant (and I'm probably forgetting stuff). Feel free to post your home screens as well.

 

[Mjmar]

I'm the same way

 

[Savage]

Here is another one: I'm glad I don't have tethering on my phone because seeing "ROGERS" on the top bar instead of "AT&T" would make me so mad, lol.

 

[Nuttydev]

• I can't have any folders on my first page, it just annoys me for some reason.
• My Camera app has to be on the top right and the Photos app has to be directly below it.
• My settings has to be at the bottom right, with the app store to the left of it and Safari has to be on the top left.
• My first page has to be full, not having a full page bugs me. (other than folders page)
• I've got to have album artwork for everything.
• I also have to close all multi-tasking apps frequently.

That's all I think

 

[Savage]

When I have icons on the first page (obviously from my screenshots I don't right now), I can't have any folders either.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/989047/ is actually the thread that sparked the idea of creating this one. Yikes!

 

[h1r0ll3r]

Man...I thought I was messed up. I'm messed up but not this bad. Even the insane need to have their limits

As for the cover flow issue, you should take a look at TuneUp. Prior to my 3G, I had NO info on any of my music with the exception of the artist/track name. 9000+ songs with no info/cover art

TuneUp cleaned up about 90% of that and I had to manually do the rest. Now my cover flow looks perfect...with the exception of those that I still have yet to get around to.

 

[EthanNixon]

I have to leave my phone locked on the first screen at all times, I can't have it locked on an application or a different home screen.

I have to leave the settings application at the main screen, not in a sub category kind of thing, this goes for all other applications as well.

I have to keep my applications in the same order they were when I bought my phone.

All of my applications have to be in folders, and listed in alphabetical order.

'o'

 

[Caliber26]

Hahaha...good to see I'm not the only weirdo out there. I, too, am extremely OCD about having incorrect/insufficient data entered into my contacts and ALL the media in my iTunes. I have to have everything from the year of release, album name, genre, to HQ artwork. And as far as my contacts go, there are some work ones where obviously I cannot easily obtain a photograph for, so I'll resort to a little of Facebook stalking, or snapping one when they're not looking. A contact w/out a pic drives me as crazy as a track w/out artwork.

Edit: I also go to my settings and look up the actual app count on my phone and compare it to my iTunes library. For some reason, it TERRIFIES me to think I may have accidentally checked off an app and they're all syncing except for one (or however many I may have checked off, according to my severe missing-app paranoia). And this stems from one occasion where I just happened to notice that my phone had 88 apps, and according to iTunes, I owned 89. Things have never been the same since.

 

[cambookpro]

Yay! I'm not the only obsessive one here! Well, my list:

- No folders on first screen. It annoys the hell out of me. (Apart from Apples official Utilities folder)
- The Utilities has to be set up exactly like it is on the Apple website
- Camera has to be top right
- Folders have to be mega organized.

 

[Eddyisgreat]

Obsessed

Guys post back when your episode airs so I can put it on YouTube.

 

[Caliber26]

Obsessed

Guys post back when your episode airs so I can put it on YouTube.

LOL. You're very right about that. I actually LOVE that show. I can relate with a lot of the people on there.

 

[-aggie-]

Without TheSpaz this thread is totally lacking. Carry on.

 

[tctony]

Without TheSpaz this thread is totally lacking. Carry on.

I miss that guy. Even though he could get annoying, his threads were always funny to read through. He couldn't start a topic, even with a legitimate question, without being dismissed as being obsessive. Anything he said was dismissed because he was that guy.

 

[JediZenMaster]

As for the cover flow issue, you should take a look at TuneUp. Prior to my 3G, I had NO info on any of my music with the exception of the artist/track name. 9000+ songs with no info/cover art

TuneUp cleaned up about 90% of that and I had to manually do the rest. Now my cover flow looks perfect...with the exception of those that I still have yet to get around to.

I need to try tune up because i was using Tidy Songs and then my iPhone OCD kicked in because it had the wrong album covers with the wrong songs and the ones that it had correct the album covers were very pixelated.

I'm a somewhat visual person and i guess that's my inner design geek or something coming out.

 

[Small White Car]

I need a lot of symmetry.

The iTunes store and the App store have to balance each other, for example. They must be next to each other in rows 2 and 3. They couldn't be in row 1 and 2 because that wouldn't be balanced on the screen!

Similarly, having 3 games on a row bothers me. I either have to find a 4th game to fill the row or cut 1 out so that it's just 2.

This is not a totally controlling thing with me. I can have things that "wrong" on my phone and it doesn't kill me. I get over it. But I notice it and think about it.

 

[nednarm]

For someone who says their OCD about their iPhone your home screen seems really messy. I like having a discrete wallpaper and only a few rows of apps. I think it looks real tidy this way.
I sort of understand your other points especially browsing through the post your home screen thread.

 

[Savage]

For someone who says their OCD about their iPhone your home screen seems really messy. I like having a discrete wallpaper and only a few rows of apps. I think it looks real tidy this way.

Messy for having nothing on it? I guess you're talking about my second page in which case it might be messy to you but is exactly how I want it for me. Your Cydia icon just hanging around down there is not something I would do, but it's your phone and your personal preference. I change my wallpaper often and that is not something I limit myself to. Whatever I think is awesome, I'll use.

 

[mikemanblah]

There can be no folders on the front screen, but on every other page the apps MUST be in folders. And i only can have folders in multiples of 4 so it fills a row. I can only have backgrounds that are patterns and not pictures so its the same everywhere

 

[h1r0ll3r]

I need to try tune up because i was using Tidy Songs and then my iPhone OCD kicked in because it had the wrong album covers with the wrong songs and the ones that it had correct the album covers were very pixelated.

I'm a somewhat visual person and i guess that's my inner design geek or something coming out.

TuneUp isn't 100% exact mind you but it is a hell of a lot better than doing it all manually

Not sure what kind of music you listen to but a lot of my music is remixes/b-sides/other non-commercially released music. This stuff wreaks havoc on TuneUp since it can't figure out where the stuff is coming from. So, in instances like this, it'll come back with wrong info, wrong cover art, etc. For stuff that's playing on radio, Top 40 or even obscure stuff, TuneUp will do a good job in finding the info. I'd say probably about 1 out 1000 songs didn't pull back any info and I had to manually look for it. It's only $20 for TuneUp (I think) but it's saved me countless hours of headaches so I can't complain. And sometimes, not sure why, TuneUp will pull in some of the most random pics for cover art. I had a couple remixes of U2 and it pulled back a picture of Jenna Jameson as the cover art. Not complaining at all but kind of weird to see a pic of her in my cover flow.

 

[darngooddesign]

[*]do not want to jailbreak my phone because of how messy/ugly/unofficial I feel it becomes

The other side of the coin is that there are some really ugly stock icons and JBing allows me to replace them with something much nicer. The effects of both JBing and using custom wallpapers are very subjective and I don't consider your wallpaper to work particularly well under stock icons. So while there are a lot of cringe-worthy custom themes the same is true for Apple-approved theming.

One of the benefits of JBing, as would apply to your phone is that you could have a different wallpapers for different springboard screens giving you choices depending on whether or not your screen has a lot of icons on it.

 

[frikfrak]

• I can't have any folders on my first page, it just annoys me for some reason.
• My Camera app has to be on the top right and the Photos app has to be directly below it.
• My settings has to be at the bottom right, with the app store to the left of it and Safari has to be on the top left.
• My first page has to be full, not having a full page bugs me. (other than folders page)
• I've got to have album artwork for everything.
• I also have to close all multi-tasking apps frequently.

That's all I think

Cool wallpaper. Mind sharing?

 

[Robby C]

I'm pretty OCD too. Here's how I'm organized;

Home Screen:

• Settings, Clock, Calculator, and Calendar all must be on top row.
• All apps with same/similar color must be next to each other (Blues with Blues, Blacks with Blacks etc.)
• My Home Screen are my most used apps, and that's why they are not in folders. Except for my mail accounts which are only together for the next reason:
• I can only use 4/5 Rows (Not including the dock) if I use over 4 rows it looks cluttered to me.

Following Pages:

• On the next page I have my second-most used apps on the top. Then everything else is categorized. As mentioned before all apps that are categorized are also color coordinated.
• Should this screen become full with 4 rows, then the next page will also have the 4 most next popular apps, followed by more folders.

Music:

• Everything must have album artwork, I've always made sure my music has had the album artwork that way my iTunes is always looking neat.
• All songs must have the appropriate Album, Artist, Genre, and Name. I know some people abbreviate their songs, but that is not the case with me.

• cannot have applications on my phone that I don't use
• do not want to jailbreak my phone because of how messy/ugly/unofficial I feel it becomes
• LOVE browsing through the "Post your iOS4 home screen" thread because about 80% of them make me cringe at how gross/bad they are (which is fun since it's not my phone)
• can't have anything from my iTunes library on my phone that is not at least of VBR quality, must have high-quality artwork (for cover flow), and must be perfectly filled out (name, artist, album, etc.) (unfortunately my library is about 50% perfect and 50% a total mess still)
• hate when I hate the name of an app but don't have the ability to change it (e.g. Bank of America's app is called BofA - gross!)
• anything less than 4 apps on the dock kills me for some reason (especially when there is just a single folder)

All of those apply for me too. If I had the iPhone 4, I would probably be the same way you are about contacts/multitasking.

I know, I'm weird

Edit:

Here's my iTunes to prove I have all album artwork
http://i37.tinypic.com/anfo5f.jpg
http://i36.tinypic.com/2gwc8i8.jpg
http://i33.tinypic.com/2cpvl0p.jpg
http://i35.tinypic.com/bg33th.jpg
http://i35.tinypic.com/1zz0084.jpg
http://i37.tinypic.com/51wkck.jpg
http://i35.tinypic.com/dwualu.jpg

 

[frikfrak]

I have to turn off the % battery display so I don't go nuts over it dropping 1% after I do something on the phone for a few mins.

 

[nednarm]

Messy for having nothing on it? I guess you're talking about my second page in which case it might be messy to you but is exactly how I want it for me. Your Cydia icon just hanging around down there is not something I would do, but it's your phone and your personal preference. I change my wallpaper often and that is not something I limit myself to. Whatever I think is awesome, I'll use.

fair enough, I just thought the wallpaper clashed with the icons. Seemed like there was too much going on. lol I sound like an idiot criticising other peoples home screens. You're right it is just down to preference

 

[MartiNZ]

Great thread. I've got about half of the issues in OP .

Biggest hates are icons with the app name on them, app names not capitalised, app na... truncated, icons with transparent borders, although they are okay in folders now.

With iPhone 4 icons not retina optimised are getting annoying also. Keeping the multitasking interface reasonably clear just makes sense to me; apart from anything else I can't tell what is actually still 'open' in some sense, and what just recent, but also can't change the order of recent apps listed, so it's a bit ugly.