Issue link: https://imageup.uberflip.com/i/917088
16 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | JANUARY 2018 By Steve Benoff Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. It's only because I write this column for both of my dedicated readers, that I've finally done something I should have done long ago. I currently have 122 apps on my phone, and that's after deleting some I realized I'd never use. So many times I've searched for an app that I know I have on my phone but can't find. I swipe through screen after screen looking for a needle in a haystack. When all else fails, I'll enter the name in the App Store. Instead of giving me the choice to install it, it will say open. That's a grossly inefficient way to find an app. Since there seems to be an app for everything, I searched for app organizers in the App Store. No luck. All I found were a couple of apps for themes and wallpaper. It occurred to me that assigning apps to folders might be the answer. It turns out that folders are easy to create. If you press on an app icon for a couple of seconds on an iPhone, the apps start to jiggle and most of them appear with an X. If you press the X, you delete the app. If you drag the icon with your finger, you can change its location. If you drag one icon on top of another, the two nest together creating a folder. Your phone will suggest a name for the folder, but you can easily change the name to suit your needs. So instead of having six screens of apps, I now have two. A screen and a half are individual icons for the apps I regularly use. Half a screen contains 13 folders. My Travel folder contains icons for 21 apps, among them the Lyft app, an app for the NY subway system, an art museum app, airline apps, etc. My Units folder contains only four apps – a unit conversion app, an angle meter, an altimeter, and a clock app. I have a folder for sports and one for apps for my home like a thermostat app and the great Four Seasons Gate app (DwellingLive). It took several hours dragging and dropping to organize my apps, but I've ended up with a cleaner looking phone and one that's a lot easier to use. Speaking of easy to use, the Angle Meter app I mentioned recently turned out to be extremely useful during my trip to New York. My daughter moved into a new home several months ago but hadn't got around to hanging pictures. We hung close to thirty pictures, and each one turned out level because of the Angle Meter app. On another trip east, I tried unsuccessfully to use the Uber app. This trip I tried Lyft. The app worked great. I'm not convinced that the Lyft concept worked well for me. I'm sure the prices I paid so easily using the app were equal to or higher than the car service I've used in the past (which also has an app). Thanks to the location feature in smartphones, the Home Depot app knew I was in the Brooklyn store without my having to tell it. It worked as well there as it does in Beaumont. Because my thermostat is on my home network, I was able to turn down my air conditioning setting from a vacation setting to its normal setting hours before arriving home from our trip - thanks to the thermostat app on my phone. And when the weather in Beaumont was twenty degrees hotter than New York, I used my sprinkler app to increase the watering. Would you pay 99 cents to save a button press? I can hear the resounding answer from both of you – NO. Well, if you're a sucker like me, the answer is yes. I use my hearing aids to listen to phone calls and podcasts via Bluetooth. If I want to separate my phone from my hearing aids, I have to press and hold a button an uncertain length of time until the link is released or go to Settings, Bluetooth, find the device and press disconnect. Now with the Bluetooth Switch app I press the icon and press the device. That's it. No more connection. To me it's worth the 99 cents. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! Organizing Your Apps