Introducing the Before Launcher
The Before Launcher is now openly available in the Play Store. It is the first freely available phone interface designed to encourage less frequent and more mindful smartphone usage.
And, you don’t have to go back to a candy bar phone, or to buy a second phone (like Palm or the Lightphone), or to carry around an expensive phone-shaped piece of wood. It works, and it is a fully functional smartphone.
We built the Before Launcher because we love technology, and we love our smartphones, but we don’t want to be constantly distracted by them. The smartphone is a toolbox that can house millions of useful tools. The toolbox doesn’t need to offer additional encouragement.
Our product encourages focus, and mindful phone usage. The Before Launcher has three core features: a clean and simple tool focused homescreen, a powerful app launcher, and a notification filter (kind of like a spam filter) to transform almost any Android phone (7.0 and up), for free. By reducing the number of notifications that interrupt you, and removing clutter from the home interface, the Before Launcher reduces your number of unplanned decisions and distractions, giving you time back.
The ethos of the Before Launcher aligns with the thesis of popular books “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport and “How to Break Up with your Phone by Catherine Price.” You can read more about that ethos in this Medium post.
The Before Launcher is free. In the near future, we plan to introduce paid features to proactively help improve your digital wellness.
The Before Labs team, comprised of software industry vets, started working on the product in August 2018, and the launcher has been in beta since the beginning of 2019. Beta testers found they didn’t want to switch back and most of them have made the Before Launcher their phone. We are excited to offer the product to everyone else. Download it now.
