What’s on your phone, Julia?

Editor's note: Every week, I publish the phone's home screen from a blog reader. Want to participate? Fill out this form. Want more? Check out the archive. All app links go to the App Store, Play Store, or F-Droid.

What is your name and what do you do?

Hi, my name is Julia. I am 32 years old, I am a trans woman, and I work as a lead designer specializing in accessibility at [Brazilian telecom] Vivo. I also play guitar and bass, play card games (currently focused on Star Wars Unlimited and Gundam TCG), and collect board games.

I have been following Manual do Usuário since the beginning and Ghedin since the classic WinAjuda in mid-2005.

What phone and operating system do you use?

iPhone 16, iOS 26.2.

Editor's note: The interview was conducted in October 2025. At the time, Julia's iPhone was running iOS 26.1 Beta.

Tell us a little about your wallpaper.

On the lock screen, I use the iOS 26 default. I thought it was really pretty and had some interesting parallax effects. On the app screen, I use the default wallpaper from KDE Plasma 5.21, called Milky Way. I like abstract wallpapers, and I really liked this purple one.

Why is your home screen the way it is?

I focus on my productivity and most recent apps. On the main screen, I keep my personal calendar with private events and the apps I use most, such as email, files, social media, and home automation.

Tell us a little about the widgets you use.

On the widget screen, I keep some information that I check daily, primarily my work calendar. After that, useful information such as temperature, battery, package tracking, gym tracking, and movement.

What apps do you use the most?

My email client (Spark), password manager (1Password), and social media, of which I access Instagram, Skeets (Bluesky client), and WhatsApp the most. I also use Microsoft Teams a lot, as it's the official messenger for my work.

What is the most obscure/strange/surprising app you use that you would like more people to know about?

There are two apps I would like to mention because they are obscure and more people should know about them. The first is Skeets, an excellent Bluesky client, native to iOS, full of features. The only downside is that it is paid, but it is well worth it.

The second is Steady, a gym training app that I always imagined but could never find. It's a Brazilian app where you register your exercises, repetitions, and intervals and keep track of them while you work out. It helps you create habits and has a history feature. It's excellent. It’s also paid, but the free version allows you to try out a complete series of workouts.

Both apps meet my main requirement: they are beautiful (after all, I am a designer), and both are already updated for iOS 26's Liquid Glass.

Finally, any message?

I focus a lot on making the most of the Apple ecosystem, and when I don't, I try to have alternatives that are more focused on my privacy (such as Fastmail as an email server and Dropbox as a cloud server). I use virtually no Google services and want to become more and more completely detached from them.