We all have that app on our home screen that we impulsively open and scroll through, even when we wish we could stop. You can try to deal with this by making your phone less appealing to pick up.
I turned my smartphone into a dumbphone – how and why
On Android, there are minimalist launchers like 0Launcher , which shows you a list of text instead of icons. The idea is that you only put apps you need, like texting or maps, on your home screen. As I wrote for PCMag last year, using this launcher really helped me see my phone as a tool for specific tasks rather than a mindless way to waste my time.
I’d love to see something similar for the iPhone, but unfortunately Apple doesn’t allow alternative launchers like Android does. Enter Dumb Phone, an indie app from developer Micheal Tigas. It bypasses Apple’s restrictions by providing a widget that can display your most-used apps and also offers instructions for making them blend in with the rest of the system. It’s a bit of work to set up, but it helps create the kind of minimalist launcher I liked on Android.
You’ll need an iPhone that can run at least iOS 16.1 to get started. After launching the app, you’ll be given a series of instructions to “minimize” your home screen. The basic idea: add the widget to your home screen, change the background to a black or white color that matches the widget, remove all other icons, and choose the apps you want to show in the widget.
