r/minimalist_phone

I’ve been thinking about building a custom Android ROM that turns any Android phone into something that feels more like a modern BlackBerry.

The idea is simple:

• The top ~60% of the display is the only area Android ever uses—not just apps, but also the home screen, lock screen, settings, notifications, videos, games… everything. As far as Android is concerned, the display simply ends there.
• The bottom ~40% is permanently reserved for the OS as an always-visible keyboard area.
• No gesture navigation. It will have dedicated Home/Back/Recents buttons, with the long-term goal of adding BlackBerry-style shortcuts, a command palette, browser/app hotkeys, etc.

The goal isn’t productivity as much as intentional phone use: a permanently smaller display, an always-present keyboard, and fewer distractions.

This wouldn’t be an app, launcher, or custom keyboard—it would be a fork of LineageOS that implements the split at the Android framework level.

I’ve already validated in an emulator that permanently confining the entire Android UI (apps, home screen, lock screen, fullscreen apps, etc.) to a smaller viewport at the framework level—actually works. So the core concept is proven; what’s left is mostly implementation: building the permanent keyboard surface, input handling, and testing on real hardware.

I’m curious—would anyone here actually use something like this? What features would make it compelling enough for you to daily drive?

I feel like based on most of the launchers and even other operating systems swiping left/right gives you search or "today" or something like that and for all apps you generally swipe up.

If I got it right, we can open a specific app on swipe up or search but not change it to something like all apps list. I am not saying this should be the default setting, but there should be a way to change swipe gesture behaviour.

I know it might go against the principles of this app, but I guess basic support of a few optional widget slots on the top might help.

People might want to replace the clock and battery bar with a custom widget or maybe add a simple weather widget, prayer timings or other informative widgets at a glance.

This is the only thing stopping me from buying the lifetime license.

For years I have kept a shortcut to my password keeper on my homepage, this coupled with a shortcut to the Weather page in Google Search were super helpful. As a lifetime subscriber I haven't seen many improvements since I installed minimalist_phone. I would love to see an established update cadence. There also needs to be a way for users to vote on feature enhancements.

How can i turn off the short videos blocking? I think this new update is great and it has helped me a lot. But now I have to watch some material for video edition and its blocking me.

Why can't the most searched apps be on top of the search list so you don't have to keep typing and looking for them, apart from the home screen when you search the most common apps should be up there rather than scroll alphabetic order

So thats that. Now I cant watch shorts or reels at any time, despite being withing my non blocked schedule. I still wanna watch shorts sometimes but I only manage to do so by unstalling the app. Anyone else with the same problem? :( I would love some help on this topic.