The home screen, and where things actually live
Find any app on your phone in under ten seconds, whether or not you can see it on the screen.
The squares on your home screen are not the apps themselves. They are door handles — shortcuts to something that lives elsewhere on the phone. That one fact settles a great many worries at once.
A photograph you took is not “inside” the Photos icon. It sits in the phone’s storage, and Photos is one window onto it. That is why the same picture turns up when you attach something to an email, or send it in a message.
Key points
- Home screen icons are shortcuts; the apps themselves live in the full list
- Removing a shortcut leaves the app entirely alone
- Search from the middle of the home screen finds anything in three letters
- Photographs and downloads live in the phone’s storage, not inside an icon
What to remember
- Home always gets you out. Nothing you opened was lost, and nothing you pressed did any harm.
- Removing a shortcut is tidying. Deleting an app is a separate, clearly worded decision.
- Search is the way into everything on a phone — apps, contacts, settings and messages, all from one box.
Try this
Swipe down from the middle of your home screen and type the first three letters of an app you rarely use. Watching it appear before you have finished typing is the moment most people stop scrolling for good.
Practice: The home screen, and where things actually live. Your first lesson is free, with no account or card; the rest are part of a Lantern plan. Interactive lessons require JavaScript.