{"id":284877,"date":"2026-07-02T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools-its-changed-how-i-use-my-phone\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T07:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:15:09","slug":"ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools-its-changed-how-i-use-my-phone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/02\/ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools-its-changed-how-i-use-my-phone\/","title":{"rendered":"I&#8217;ve been replacing my home screen apps with these tools; it&#8217;s changed how I use my phone"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidpolice.com\/ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools\/\">I&#8217;ve been replacing my home screen apps with these tools; it&#8217;s changed how I use my phone<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidpolice.com\/ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools\/\">https:\/\/www.androidpolice.com\/ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-07-02 07:00:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.androidpolice.com\">www.androidpolice.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always loved how customizable Android lets you be over your home screen, even if some of the tools are buried or can be overwhelming.<\/p>\n<p>Some of my Android Police colleagues like to fix their Android phone home screen mess, or redesign their home screen around moments instead of apps.<\/p>\n<p>I like to go the opposite way: maximum clutter, maximum mess, and some method in the madness.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been achieving this more and more over the years, as I slowly replace apps on my phone with another kind of tool.<\/p>\n<p>It began as a little function I played around with when I first started using Android as a tech reporter, but when I discovered how useful it can be in my day-to-day life, it quickly caught on.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m talking about home screen shortcuts; icons which can take me to web pages or Google Drive documents.<\/p>\n<p>Learning how to use these well has helped me avoid apps and simplify processes, changing how I use my phone for work or pleasure.<\/p>\n<p>                    <span data-field=\"label\" class=\"article-card-label\">Related<\/span><\/p>\n<h5 class=\"display-card-title \">\n<p>\t\t\tHow I decluttered my Android home screen \u2014 one app at a time<\/p>\n<\/h5>\n<p class=\"display-card-excerpt\">Less chaos, more clarity<\/p>\n<p>    &#8230;<br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidpolice.com\/ive-been-replacing-my-home-screen-apps-with-these-tools\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve been replacing my home screen apps with these tools; it&#8217;s changed how I use&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":284878,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static0.anpoimages.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/wm\/2026\/06\/shortcuts-as-android-apps-home-page-3.jpg?w=1600&h=900&fit=crop","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-284877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284877"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284877"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":284879,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284877\/revisions\/284879"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}