Yes you can pay a few hundred dollars to buy a dumb-smartphone. Or you could pay for this, and achieve the same effect. Thank you for making a one time purchase app that is functional and useful. Three widgets is enough to contain every useful app I need to access, no less and no more.
I have been enjoying using this app to remove clutter from my Home Screen but there’s a bug with the settings launcher. Instead of launching the main settings it launches the dumbing settings. There are also a couple other stock apps that don’t open smoothly like the phone app and the camera.
Tried this alongside two other apps that accomplish essentially the same thing. None of the apps have every feature I’m looking for, but this one comes the closest, and also looks the best.
The only personally necessary feature that’s missing (which the other apps have) is setting a custom background for the widgets, i.e. making them appear transparent on any wallpaper. I already bought this app so I’ll continue to use it, in the hopes that this feature is added in the future.
Lots of potential here and an overall enjoyable UI/UX.
This app essentially does what it says, but the way apps launch is so clunky that it detracts from the user experience. There is a quick launch option to try to mitigate this, but it still doesn’t feel right. This isn’t the developer’s fault as it seems like they’re doing the best they can within the confines of iOS, but it’s just not what I was hoping for when I purchased the app.
I’ve never wrote a review before, but this app has been pretty cool to use. I’d trade my 13 mini for a Light Phone, but I don’t wanna be the green text guy and true dumb phones aren’t really practical.
This app gets me most of the way there. Very simple and straightforward to use. I use focus modes, so I can switch back to my regular set up quickly.
The only annoying thing is whenever I open Settings, it opens the Dumbify settings. Very strange so if there’s a fix please let me know.
Dumbify is off to a good start. I prefer it to the alternatives (not least because it's a sane one-time purchase instead of a many-times-more-expensive subscription), and the author is quite responsive and steadily improving it.
I appreciate how clean this looks, bit launching an app is not a very smooth experience. The app supports a handful of potential apps out of the box, but if you want to add an app that isn’t on there it can get somewhat technical (either url schemes or you make a shortcut). My biggest gripe is likely a limitation of iOS itself, but the widget doesn’t launch your desired app directly. It launches the app which then redirects you to the app (or sometimes it redirects you to a shortcut that redirects you to the app for another layer). You’re definitely choosing style over seamlessness with this compared to using a shortcut widget. I set this up so that it shows the home screen and wallpaper using a focus mode so I can quickly toggle between this and my unrestricted phone access. I highly recommend that for those who are on the fence, but I do seem to be stuck with the same app dock on my home screen (again, this is an iOS issue more than anything but i’m mentioning it since this app aims to essentially reskin iOS) Definitely worth the money and it seems to do everything it can but it does have its limitations.
edit: I just realized that enabling “Reduce Motion” in accessibility gets rid of the animations when launching an app which makes the experience much smoother and also removes more distracting eyecandy on your phone!
Adding custom apps does not function, and what the launcher features by default is EXTREMELY limited. [IGNORE THIS/Do not give this dev a penny, this product barely functions in it’s current state/IGNORE THIS]
Edit: I have brain damage, apparently. App is fine. Ignore me
It’s not changing our iOS - it’s just a “full page” widget on your Home Screen and they give you a background color so it looks “good”. HOWEVER, app integration and user experience are atrocious and some of your app can not integrate with their widget. TBH - It’s not that this app is terrible, it’s that they sale you “the moon” in marketing and then give you a cardboard box and tell you to color it like a spaceship.
I’ll change my review if the developer fixed any of the problems I talk about here.
This is an extremely simple app that basically acts as a stylish launcher for Apple Shortcuts.
Shortcuts, which comes included with any recent Apple device, is free & amazing (through no effort of the creator of this app.) Dumbify isn’t different from any of the other free apps that provide minimalist Launcher Widgets, and actually offers less customizability in some cases. That’s why it’s so disappointing how *little* this app does. There are two types of Widgets that Dumbify provides: one that can show links to (Shortcuts that open) apps of your choice, and an empty one that acts as a “spacer” for your home screen. There is only ONE size of Launcher Widget offered, which takes up an entire screen of an iPhone. There is ZERO customization beyond this, which is where I’m frustrated. I’d really really like to see more than one size of Launcher widget offered, or the ability to re-size the Launcher Widget on iOS 18 (running the beta in my iPad, Dumbify *does not* include this super simple functionality.)
The lack of Launcher Widget customization beyond font size/weight is super disappointing too - I’d expect a few options for alternative fonts to the default.
Dumbify is a product to make your home screen look *exactly* how those in the App Store page’s demo pictures show. If you want anything beyond that (and you likely will after a few hours) go somewhere else.
jœ________
Caleb Sandoval
Pfleds
Ambient Dad
jspec1594
jonathanrk
Gavin Hern
DMGesus
Matt Wingo
NotOverlyCritical
