Free for fourteen days with everything unlocked. After that one purchase of $14.99, once, and it is yours. No subscription and nothing else to buy.
Minimalist phone · iPhone · Android
Dumb phone. Same phone.
You want the quiet of a minimalist phone without buying a second number, a brick, or a whole new life. We put the entire dumb phone inside your smart phone.
1bit is a whole phone in two colours, and you pick the two. Music, podcasts, maps, camera, notes, games. The essentials. Gloriously retro. On purpose.
Black and white today. Themes arrive with the next update.
Free for fourteen days. Then $14.99, once.
- iOS 18 or later
- Android 10 or later
- No account
- No subscription
- Two colours
Real screen
Settings, theme. Press a row.
Make your own
Mix two colours. Turn the wheel.
The same mixer and the same wheel as in the app. Ink and paper, thirty-two steps a channel, or one colour that sets the rest. It will not wear a pair it cannot read, so you can drag the whole way and never lose the screen.
Drag round the wheel to turn it. Press the middle to keep. Or tap a bar and use the arrow keys.
Themes, the mixer and depth arrive in the app with the next update.
Screen
Colours in use
Depth
How many colours at once
A theme says which colours. Depth says how many. They are two settings, so every theme works at every depth, and the screens below are real captures.
Two colours, and a picture is a pattern of them. This is how 1bit comes, and it already gets you every theme on this page.
Four tones, as the handhelds had. A dither becomes a flat tone, and a grey is no longer a pattern.
The four tones, a colour of its own for whatever is selected, and pictures in 256 colours on the same grid.
The film
See it move
A short film of 1bit on an iPhone. A pile of notifications gives way to the 1bit launcher, then the music player with its wheel, the drawn map, the camera, podcasts, snake, the pixel faces and clocks, the wheel turning through the themes, and the launcher widget on a black home screen. It ends on BIT, the app's mascot: keep the iPhone, lose the chaos.
Every screen in it is the app, recorded on a phone.
The move
Keep the iPhone. Lose the chaos.
Put the launcher widget on a black background and hide all the other home screen pages. Next time you unlock, it feels like a different phone. Setup takes about ten minutes.
Instagram is still there if you need it. Just not staring at you whenever you check the time.
Pick it for the gate and it opens on a 1bit page first, which says how many times today. Turn back, or go in for a few minutes.
Music
Click wheel. 2004.
Your own files, FLAC included, or the library already on the phone, under a wheel you can run by feel.
When the album ends, it stops. Nothing queues up the next hit.
Music in the manual ▸
Podcasts
Your shows. Then silence.
Search, subscribe, download, sleep timer. Plain RSS, the shows you asked for, and nothing recommended.
Downloads keep going with the app closed, and where you left off follows you.
Podcasts in the manual ▸
Camera
Shot in pixels.
The viewfinder is already two colours, so you frame the picture you are going to get. Friends come back looking like a memory.
Camera in the manual ▸
Maps
Maps, but make it ink.
A map drawn in pixels, with your pins on it. Enough to get there, and nothing to scroll.
Directions you can follow with the screen off, with a buzz at each corner if you want one.
Maps in the manual ▸
Games
Snake. Keypad. Go.
Klondike, minesweeper, snake on a drawn keypad, Brick on the wheel, Stack on a drawn handheld. No leaderboards, no accounts, no ads.
Back seat of a long drive energy.
Games in the manual ▸
The morning paper
Today, on one page.
Every morning 1bit sets your day as a front page: what is on, what is due, the weather and three stories from your feeds.
One silent note says it is ready, and that is the only one. The Today widget turns into its front page that morning.
The paper in the manual ▸
Weather
A town under your sky.
Rain falls between the houses, smoke leans with the wind, windows light up at night.
The forecast is MET Norway's, for where you are to about a kilometre. There is a widget for it too.
Weather in the manual ▸
Android
Press home. It is 1bit.
On Android, 1bit can be the home screen itself. No widget standing in for it, and nothing behind it.
Your other apps are one row away, in the same plain type. One switch puts the phone back the way it was.
The list
What is in here
The essentials, with no algorithm queuing up the next hit of dopamine. Tap a row to read about it.
- PhoneContacts▸
- MusicFLAC▸
- PodcastsRSS▸
- CameraCrushed▸
- MapsDrawn▸
- WebNo tabs▸
- NewsFeeds▸
- CalendarReal▸
- RemindersReal▸
- NotesPlain text▸
- ClockAlarms▸
- WeatherDrawn▸
- GamesThe shelf▸
- SettingsSwitches▸
Hate a row? Switch it off. The widget follows.
Ten minutes
Set the phone up
The guide is built into the app, one step at a time, and you can stop after any of them. The short version for an iPhone is three moves. On Android, make 1bit the home screen and the app walks you through the rest.
-
1Put the launcher widget on your home screen and leave one page.
-
2Black wallpaper. Grayscale if you want the rest of the phone to match.
-
3A Focus that only lets your favourites through.
Yours
What stays yours
- No account, no server of ours, no analytics, no tracking SDKs.
- Sync rides your own iCloud, or your own Google Drive on Android, switchable line by line.
- Everything works with sync switched off.
- Your calendars and contacts are the real ones, and on iPhone your reminders too. Nothing gets copied.
Questions
Real questions
Wait, can an app actually replace the home screen?
On Android, yes. Make 1bit the home screen and pressing home lands on the list, with your other apps one row away. One switch inside the app gives the home screen back, at any time.
On iPhone, nope. iOS will not let anybody replace SpringBoard. What you can do is put 1bit's launcher widget on a black page, ditch the other pages, and unlock to a list of words. About ten minutes. Your other apps are still in the App Library if you need them.
So how do I get the dumb phone setup?
On iPhone: install 1bit, drop the launcher widget on your home screen, leave one page. Black wallpaper. Grayscale if you want the whole phone to match. A Focus that only lets favourites through.
On Android: install 1bit and make it the home screen. The app walks you through it.
Camera, maps, alarms, podcasts, music: they live in here. The Manual has the steps.
Do I lose my photos, calendar, or messages?
No. Nothing gets moved and nothing gets deleted.
Calendars and contacts are the real ones. So are reminders on iPhone. Android has no reminders of its own to share, so there they are a list inside 1bit. Photos stay in your gallery. Messages stay in your messaging app.
Can I still open Instagram when I need it?
Yes. Everything stays installed. Setup just takes the noise off the page you stare at all day.
On iPhone, one swipe to the App Library and you are back in colour chaos, and settings, other apps gives the ones you need on purpose a row of their own. On Android, every app is one row away.
Why only two colours?
Colour is how a screen begs for your attention. Two colours ask for less, and they look incredible.
It starts out black and white, and with the next update you can wear a handheld green, an old phone, paper or a terminal instead, or mix your own. Two colours at a time, with every shade a pattern of them, until you ask for more: depth goes up to 2-bit and 8-bit. Built that way from the first sketch, not a filter slapped on later.
Is there a feed in it?
Podcasts you subscribed to. Articles from sites you picked. Nothing else gets in, and you reach the end of it.
Nothing recommends the next thing. Nothing autoplays while you are putting on a jacket.
Does Spotify work?
1bit does not stream it on either phone. 1bit plays music you own: your files, FLAC included, plus the library already on your phone.
On Android it can be the remote for the Spotify app, or whichever other player is going: the song, play, pause, skip and scrub, in 1bit's bar and on the click wheel. Spotify does the playing. It needs notification access, and reads no notifications.
On iPhone, Spotify can have a row of its own that opens it, under settings, other apps. If your whole life is streaming on an iPhone, this music player is not for you yet.
Which iPhones?
Any iPhone on iOS 18 or later.
On iOS 26 alarms are real system alarms (they ring through Silent and Focus). Below that they are notifications, quiet on Silent. The rest of the app is the same.
Is there an Android version?
Yes, with every section, on Android 10 or later. It is on Google Play.
On Android 1bit can also be your home screen: press home and the list is there, with your other apps one row away. You can give the home screen back from inside the app at any time, and nothing in 1bit locks that away, even after the trial.
Are you tracking me?
No. No account, no server of ours, no analytics, no creepy SDKs. The Privacy page names every service a feature talks to.
Sync, if you turn it on, goes through your own iCloud, or your own Google Drive on Android.
How much?
$14.99, once. Free for fourteen days first, with everything unlocked, so you can live with it before you decide.
No subscription, no account, and nothing else to buy. It is on the App Store and Google Play now.
Try me for fourteen days. Everything is unlocked.
The price
Get it
Free trial, then one purchase
What you need
| Thing | The answer |
|---|---|
| Device | Any iPhone, or an Android phone. No iPad, no Mac. |
| iOS | 18 or later. |
| Android | 10 or later. On Android 1bit can also be your home screen, and you can switch back from inside it. |
| Alarms | On iOS 26 they are real system alarms and ring through Silent. Below 26 they are notifications, quiet on Silent. On Android they are alarms and ring through silent. |
| Music | Nothing. Drag files in, or play the library already on the phone. |
| Account | None. Sync, if you want it, rides your own iCloud, or your own Google Drive on Android. |