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Dumb Phone iOS app, $2K a month, self-reported: minimalist iPhone use

Dumb Phone is an iOS app that turns iPhones into minimalist phones with customizable home screens and app shortcuts. Its $2K a month was founder-reported on the Indie Hackers product page (not independently verified), as of October 2024.

What it actually sells

Dumb Phone is an iOS app for iPhone users seeking fewer distractions and a simplified home screen. Its stated purpose is to “Avoid easy distractions and dopamine hits by turning your iPhone into a dumb phone, with the Dumb Phone app for iOS.”

Dumb Phone creates customizable home screens with shortcuts to selected apps. It provides an interactive widget for those shortcuts and can remove fancy icons and notification indicators from the home screen.

How it charges

The official site shows its pricing as follows: Free to try, with an upgrade for the complete app experience. Prices are as shown on the site on 2026-10-01 and may change.

Where customers come from

Dumb Phone says it is “Helping hundreds of thousands of people join the Dumb Phone™ movement.”

What stands out

Dumb Phone presents a specific home-screen format: customizable screens, shortcuts to selected apps, an interactive widget, and no fancy icons or notification indicators. The site describes the result as “Just plain links to each app I need most.”

From the official site

Avoid easy distractions and dopamine hits by turning your iPhone into a dumb phone, with the Dumb Phone app for iOS.
With it, you can create home screens like this and in my case, I think it is a very good idea for some mode of concentration.

Excerpts from the official website, fetched October 1, 2026.

Where it sits in the data

Dumb Phone's $2K a month is higher than 48% of the 6,604 projects with founder-reported monthly revenue in our dataset; the median across them is $2K. Snapshot: 2026-09-30. The dataset only covers founders who chose to publish their numbers, so it leans toward businesses that work; use it for scale, not as an average.

Currency

All figures are in US dollars as published. A rough yuan or euro conversion is not applied here because prices, taxes and acquisition costs differ by country.

Could you build something like this?

In my view, the buyer is an iPhone user who wants fewer distractions and a simplified home screen. Distribution would need to come from places that discuss focus, digital minimalism, app shortcuts, and less distracting phone setups.

Building the app would require working with iOS app shortcuts, widgets, home-screen customization, and notification-indicator controls. The business would also need to handle competition from built-in phone focus features and other minimalist-phone tools, while providing support when operating-system behavior changes.

Verdict: Needs real work.

One thing to take from it

Dumb Phone’s offer is a specific change to the iPhone home screen: customize the screen, keep selected apps accessible through shortcuts, and remove fancy icons and notification indicators. The visible product proposition centers on a simpler, less distracting phone experience.

Sources

  1. Dumb Phone official website, fetched October 1, 2026
  2. Indie Hackers product page: revenue founder-reported on the Indie Hackers product page (not independently verified), as of October 2024

Revenue, team and start-cost figures are what the founder reported at the interview date, not current figures and not a prediction of what you will earn. Product and pricing facts come from the business's own website as checked on 30 September 2026. Method & sources · Disclosure

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