Here are screen shots of four phone home screens. The question asked is: which do you prefer? But consider a different question: what do you want to do? Or, putting it another way, how many different things might you want to do?
Each home screen has a number of different icons or other items that seem as though they might launch an app, allowing you to do some separate thing. I’m not familiar with all of these platforms, so I’m guaranteed to get this wrong, but:
Android: 11, counting the notion that clicking on the clock does something, and assuming that the bar across the top does something (more than what opening Chrome and searching, one of the other options on the screen, does), and assuming that the plain icons at the bottom do something, but not counting the back arrow at the bottom left, on the assumption that it is a function, not an app.
iOS: 22, not counting the two empty spaces, which could obviously also include apps, because all of these home screens could presumably be configured to have more options.
Windows Phone 8: 13, assuming that the blue rectangle at the lower right is unused.
Ubuntu: 13, assuming that “Home,” is a command and not just a label, and that tapping the photo stream does something, and that each of the small icons at the bottom does something.
Given the “style over substance” argument often made against Apple, it’s interesting that iOS is the clear choice for presenting access to the most app choices just one tap away from the home screen.
Geoff Canyon's Appeal to Authority 