Apps are usually designed to keep you on your phone.
Stimulated, engaged, and so infinite scrolling and infinite loading.
But can an app help you stay off of your phone
and even help you to detox?
Yes, it's called the Minimalist Phone App.
And we're going to be talking about it today.
Have you ever had one of those moments where you get so deeply into an app
like social media, then you insert whatever your vices
and then all of a sudden 30 minutes later you're on your sofa
and you look at the time and you don't even understand where the time went.
And it's been 30 minutes.
You've been in this black hole of social media.
I don't know. It's definitely happened to me.
Comment below If you're one of those people who like
we've all gone through those moments, especially when we're procrastinating.
If you're somebody that is addicted to their phone,
think about how easy it is to just pull out your phone
and be entertained so quickly by YouTube, by Instagram, by Reddit,
by anything that's available for you at your fingertips.
Like boredom is not a thing anymore.
Remember back in the day
when you entered into your phone, you had to have a passcode.
Then you might have had the finger swiping gesture.
And now you don't even need any of that.
You can just simply look at your phone and it will unlock for you.
It's become too convenient.
Yes. If you're really disciplined and you have that productivity
and everything, it's excellent. But convenience comes at a cost thing.
Everything's super colorful.
It's just like constantly distracting you and stimulating you and
and putting all that dopamine into your system.
I made a video called Quitting Social Media about a year ago,
and I didn't expect it to resonate with so many people.
Many people have wonderful comments on that video.
And that video caught the attention of the minimalist phone app.
Then they reached out to me asking if I was interested in
trying out their product and reviewing it.
And at first I said, no, I don't want to try new things.
I'm like, happy with my system.
I turned off all my notifications It's been a while.
I've been doing that. It works pretty well for me.
Then I decided to check some other competitors,
which aren't really competitors because they don't offer quite as much.
I tried their free trial at first
to see if I could actually just go off of the free trial.
And surprisingly, you can.
But if you want to support the devs and you want to open up more possibilities
I would suggest you do get the full version,
but I'm going to cover all of that real soon and with the free trial.
What I like about that is you don't have to sign up for anything.
Which I love.
You don't need to create an account, and it's not time based at all.
You don't get any ads but are limited to less quantity for some of the features.
But you get to try all of the features ads free without an account creation,
which to me is really good.
If you do want to try it, use the link down below.
That way you can get the custom themes.
You might as well get them
and it will also help support the channel if you do decide to upgrade
to the full version.
If you get our full custom theme right here
and that will give you different options that you can have here.
You could do your favorite
colors, could choose the actual fonts that you like as well.
I personally like the black and white
and as a bonus, if your screen isn't old, which I believe
most screens nowadays are old, then a more black
background would help
marginally with your battery life because with no flat screen,
anything that's black is just a pixel that is off and not illuminated.
So you you could save a little bit of battery life actually.
Comment down below. I'd like to know what your cousin's themes are.
The minimalist phone app launcher, unfortunately, is only available
for Android because iPhone is restrictive
and you can't override the launcher because it's an iPhone.
I had used the minimalist phone app on my Google Pixel three,
and then I had tried the iPhone on order and I was really bummed when I found that
I couldn't use the minimalist phone app on the iPhone,
but that I hated the iPhone so much that I went back to Android
and I got to use my minimalist phone app again.
So it all worked out.
Currently, systems that exist to manage your phone usage are very basic
and rudimentary.
In Android and in iPhone, you have digital wellbeing
and you have maybe some basic app timers that will limit your use in a day
and once you reach
or get close to that limit, you'll get some sort of notification,
but it doesn't actually really help in terms of managing things in the moment.
So what the minimalist phone app is, it's a launcher.
It doesn't completely override
your entire phone, but it changes the UI of the launcher.
If I have a Samsung S 22 and it has a little side
bar option, on the right quick access, different apps.
That still remains functional.
So how the minimalist phone app helps you is in
many ways I'm going to just give a general overview.
The monochrome and lesser color, it just stimulates to bring a little bit less.
It makes you more intentional about the apps that you need to actually
go into via in-app reminders, via having to type the app up.
It's clutter free.
I find that I don't end up swiping through memory use sometimes.
If I started using an app too much, especially in the days
that Instagram was really bad for me, I would sometimes realize
halfway through like, how did this phone even end up in my hand?
And I just ended up opening the apple was on autopilot, basically,
and this helps take you out of the autopilot.
I find it
just makes you reach less for your phone because your phone just becomes a lot
less enticing and you become just so much more aware of your usage of phone usage.
So let's cover the functionalities on the phone
so what you do get
is a completely black screen, and you can see that I'm filming this
very late at night because I was procrastinating all day.
But we are filming this right now.
So when we go on the home screen right here, you can see
I have a couple of favorites, two quick access, different apps.
Now I have the full version,
which allows me to have an unlimited amount of favorites
all my home screen on the free trial, your limited, long
pressed drag and drop to move them, and you can remove them like that.
So you're going to lose your widgets in this app.
And somebody that really like my calendar widget, my notes widget,
it did suck, but I found it was very easy to transition out of that.
And those two apps
that I mentioned, the calendar and the notes I have them right here
on my home page. So they're very quick and accessible.
It doesn't feel like a huge compromise.
Now, if we just swiped the left, you will now see all of your apps.
This is your entire list of your apps.
There's very few settings in here, and one of the settings
is that you can have the keyboard
tray open as soon as you do swipe to all of your apps,
and then you can just start typing.
So if I want to start typing, I can get Instagram like that.
It seems slightly annoying, but look how quick it was.
Two letters and it's already there.
If I wanted to be ultra lazy, I could just use my personal assistant
to open up my apps.
In this case, I'm going to be using Bixby, open YouTube
there's always that possibility.
Now, the whole point of this is to make your phone less enticing, less
easy to access. You're not going off of muscle memory.
Your apps are not beautifully organized in folders and everything on your screen.
You can actually rename.
And I believe on the free trial you can only rename three,
but on the full version you have unlimited renames.
So if you really do want to organize using the minimalist phone app,
you can long press and you can rename, let's say,
all my banking apps that I put in a folder.
I could just put the prefix bank underscore or like money or whatever
I wanted to call it finances underscore and then the name,
and then I can have them all categorized like that if I wanted
certain apps to appear at the very top all the time because I want to access
them all the time, but I don't necessarily want them on my home screen.
I could put an underscore in front of them and they would automatically
be at the top because special character.
So with the renaming, you can find an organizational system if you wish.
So if I long pressed, you can see all the different things you add
to feature block, rename, hide, uninstall, uninstall is obviously normal app.
And for you, this right here is pretty much all you're going to really need.
These are all the features.
So add to favorites is what goes on the home screen.
Rename we just went through hide it just allows you
to hide the app from your entire list.
So if you have something that's very problematic, you could hide it there.
But this was I think one of their early features.
So I believe that that feature has kind of changed a little bit
because they've now added other features that kind of replaced that.
So for Hide what I use it for because I have a Samsung,
I have 22 is there's a lot of bloatware and all of the blower that I just do
not care about, but I cannot uninstall, I hide and I just never see it again.
So it's still taking up memory.
Yes, but I don't need to see it, which is actually a great benefit
because with the regular launcher that comes with Samsung,
I can't necessarily hide apps.
I can throw them into a folder
and just never look at the folder, but they're there.
But I can also use the hide for is, let's say apps that I don't use very much.
Let's say this is for my speaker. I don't really use this.
I can just hide it away.
So not to look at it all the time, but if I do need it,
I can go to the settings home screen and in apps
and I can actually on hide it or open it.
This hiding feature actually just removes even more digital clutter,
which just helps my mind to be more free.
Now over here you have the quick phone dialing phone, quick camera access.
This is what's on your home screen.
The dialer and the camera.
For the time being, the phone dialer is going to be your phone's default.
So I actually use the Google Dialer.
It won't work here in the quick launcher yet.
I believe that's in the pipeline for their features,
but it will take a couple of versions and updates before it is released.
And speaking of features, you can actually go onto more to their Reddit.
And on their Reddit, you can voice feature requests,
you can chat with other people.
They are open to improvements on their apps.
The other feature that you have is Block.
Now, Block is the feature
that's gonna help you detox and you do get a little bit of a while.
I use you do quite a bit.
You get a little bit of an idea
here of how much you've used your apps in the last while.
You can batch block like that too, which is really great.
And what I like about this is it allows you to detox
and then when you try to open it, you just will not let you open it.
So just be sure about blocking it.
It's pretty difficult to unblock it.
That's the whole point of it.
So don't accidentally block an app that you will need.
And I do plan on using this if I feel my Instagram usage gets out of hand.
But I because I am back on Instagram, but so far it's been very much under control.
That detoxing that I did last year has helped tremendously.
And then all of the therapy that I've done and everything.
So I'm not really on Instagram the way I used to be.
Now, my absolute favorite
feature is one that is called In-app Reminder,
and I only use it for Instagram is that one.
Every time you open it, it will automatically give you a pop up
and preset how much time you want to spend on it.
Plus I say one minute after the minute goes down,
there's actually another pop up that says, Hey, your time's up.
Do you want to extend your time and by how much?
So it really keeps you in check.
It's basically like your parenting, your self,
you're made aware of how much time you want to spend
because let's say you're like, Oh, it's going to be 5 minutes.
That 5 minutes can go way faster than you think.
Now I want to show you the notifications filter.
So what notifications filter allows you to do is to
filter different notifications that you let through
and you can choose and settings right here, what you will allow through or not.
You can also activate or completely deactivated here.
So what I do is a double filtering system in my actual phone.
I go to device settings, which you can also access right here
with the little gear, go to my notifications, and in here
I've already adjusted what I want or not in terms of notifications.
So there's already a first filter.
And then if I go into, let's say, YouTube notification categories
and I can choose what I would like.
So you can already do that
on the first layer with your phone that is your phone's Android
device system.
But beyond that, whatever is left that I do want to get notified,
I don't need it to be an instant push notification and I can have
it filtered and batched together.
That's when I will go ahead and use a notification filter.
These are all the apps that are going to be allowed to be pushed in real time,
and then everything else would be filtered and would appear here as a batch,
which you can now clear all or you can click on it and you can.
And so that way it gives you a double notification filtering system.
So I can batch all of this because it's unimportant and I can look at it
when I want to, thus increasing my productivity and my presence
overall and making my phone less distracting the monochrome mode.
I don't have a Windows PC, so I'm unable to activate this
and it requires you to have a Windows PC the first time to activate it.
What it will do is monochrome your other app,
so it will make it a lot less enticing.
You can toggle on and off which apps for all the features in Manila,
this phone app.
So I would assume that this one is no different.
It would obviously make you do Netflix, Instagram, Facebook,
a lot less enticing but let's say maybe the news would be a good one.
Maybe Facebook would be a good one.
This is less of a photo
sharing app at this point, but I feel like for Instagram and
other apps like that,
the other features would be more useful, but really depends on you.
You have so many options here to choose from depending on your needs.
You can either hide the app
because you don't need it at all, or you just don't want to see it at all.
And you can manually on hide it if you want.
You can block the app to do a full detox.
You can do the in-app reminders to do constant check ins with yourself.
You can swipe up to open searching. Good.
So I've done it.
Do notifications well, you can enable or disable it.
Then you can also go here a tutorial extreme very simple.
That's so intuitive.
I didn't need the tutorials to help me, but you can actually go here
and see the tutorial.
There's one thing I would have liked and it would have been the weather app
as a widget on the home screen.
There is, however, a way for you to get weather notifications
in the default android.
Now, I'm not sure this is Android 12 or if it's a Samsung thing,
maybe this is an app that you can add on because Android
does have so many possibilities.
But if you look here, I get notifications for the weather,
even though I have the minimalist app phone launcher loaded.
So how you do that is you go into your device settings.
This will bring up the default settings, you go into notifications
you go here if you type in whether in my case
I have it here, I have show weather, I go to notification categories.
The way I have it set up right now, it updates every few hours.
It's not constant.
So if I do clear this, I'm unable to see it anymore.
If I click ongoing notification, actually, it will always be there
and then I can see details of the weather.
That's kind of a workaround for that.
In my case, I have Google assistant set as a default assistant,
so if I long pressed a home, I can always ask it for the weather.
What's the weather in New York today?
Mostly sunny.
So is it worth the full version?
In my opinion, yes.
You get to support the devs and you also get to unlock different
items on your phone.
You may try the free version
and realize that that's perfectly enough for all of your needs,
but I found myself wanting to add actually more favorites to my home screen.
That was the main thing that I really wanted to do
because I wanted to quick access my gallery and my photos.
My calendar, my notes, all the things that I basically originally had widgets for.
In terms of the pricing.
North America and Europe are all for 99 a month or 1499 a year.
Or my favorite is the one time fee of 2499, and that is in USD CAD in euros.
And I find that the one time fees
are actually the most worth it because then you can buy it and forget it.
And when you break that down in a cost per year, it ends up being something like
less than 250 a month and you're going to be using this for more than one year.
And when you change devices you can keep using it
because it's set with your Google account, not the phone itself.
It's actually not that expensive considering the cost that it costs
to develop an app.
It's not cheap to maintain and to constantly add new features,
but also $3 is not that expensive for your productivity, for your time.
For all of that which you will greatly benefit from.
Using an app like this, you're less distracted and you're more present,
and in the moment also free apps, free apps are never free.
They come at a cost of some kind.
Your privacy, the ads and you don't get any of that.
My assessment is I would have paid full price for this app.
I have a few apps on my phone that I've paid full price for
and that I've just used for. So many years.
And at this point, it's less than the 250 a month.
Considering how long I can use these apps, I find it's it's worth it.
But everybody has a different budget and everyone has different value systems.
But nowadays, my time is worth more than money and $3 for an app
that gives me back so much time, I find I really gain a lot.
That's my review of the minimalist phone app launcher.
I'm curious to know what your thoughts are down below,
what custom theme colors you would do, what your favorite feature is,
how you customize it to make it work for you.
I'd love to hear all your thoughts down below.
Have you found any other apps that are like this?
I did use a Samsung as 22 main launcher for the first week or two
that I had the phone and then quickly put back the minimalist phone app.
As much as I like all the Colorfulness and I like the widgets,
I really like the simplicity.
I consider myself a minimalist in my life.
I'm constantly decluttering and having that digital declutter
just helps keep my mind
more relaxed and calm and focused, which I really like.
Please like this video if you found it helpful in any way
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I like to optimize life through different products,
which is why I like to do really in the product reviews through mental health.
And I really like coffee and also optimizing life through how to's that are
helpful That's it for me for this, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.