How to Customize Your iPhone Dock

Did you know that you can customize your dock? You can place your favorite apps in the dock for easy access anytime. There are some default apps in your dock, but if you use different apps most frequently, you may want to move them to the dock. I am also going to tell you how I have my iPhone dock set up and why. I invite you to share what apps you have in your dock. Just know that there are no right or wrong answers here. Here's how to customize your iPhone dock.

How to customize your Dock

To remove an icon from the bottom:

Press and hold ANY icon in the dock. The icons will begin to shake.
Then simply drag the icon you no longer want there up to the first open space after an already existing icon on your screen.
Press the Home button to get the icons to stop shaking.

To place another icon in the dock:

Find the icon you want to place in your dock and then press and hold it until it shakes.
Drag it into your dock and release.
Press the Home button to get the icons to stop shaking.

That's all there is to it.

My Dock...

From left to right, the first app I have in my dock is the one that was already there when I got my iPhone: the telephone icon. It's there because, well, I use it a lot.

The next app I have is Evernote (free). I am an Evernote power user. So much so that I have recently upgraded to their premium subscription plan ($5/month or $45/year). The two biggest differences with the Premium plan is a larger monthly upload allowance (1GB versus 60MB for the free plan) and the option for offline notebook access (the premium plan allows you to download entire notebooks, while the free plan only allows you access when you have a connection to the Internet). I use Evernote for almost everything (I even wrote this blog post on it), so I need the icon to be visible all the time on my iPhone.

The third app I have in my dock is Mailbox (free). As a professional speaker, I use Google Apps for Business (Gmail without the ads) for my email, and Mailbox is a great tool for me. I like Mailbox because it seamlessly integrates with my Google Apps account but also because of its deferred feature. This moves the item to the folder named later until the date and time I specify, when it moves back to my inbox.

The last app I have in my dock is my calendar app. For that, I use Tempo (free). I prefer Tempo because it is very well-laid out and connects with not only my address book (so I can email or call someone from right within the app) also allows me to send birthday greetings to my Facebook friends.

Now it's your turn...

What apps do you have in your iPhone dock and why?