Blank Spaces Launcher Reviews

So I downloaded BlankSpacesLauncher and follow the steps and just like another similar app. I ran into a problem where I couldn’t add the widget part. My iPhone didn’t recognize BlankSpacesLauncher to add any of its widgets to. Then another issue I found is when I tried to find BlankSpacesLauncher itself on my home screen… I couldn’t find it. This really gave me an uncomfortable feeling, and I went through my search to find BlankSpacesLauncher and delete it through that channel. This would be the second app that was very similar to the one before that gave me a real uncomfortable feeling downloading… I think I’m gonna take a different approach to simplify and minimize my phone to keep me more productive. by the way, if this seamlessly worked, I would have no problem paying $10.

App selection is too small, I requested an app months ago and still hasn’t been added. White noise app is listed in the selection but doesn’t actually open BlankSpacesLauncher , just opens blank. This is either a bug that still hasn’t been fixed or two apps have the same name and I have the wrong app installed.

FAQ section and instructions are not well written and contain zero images, very poor instructional design. A design aesthetic is one thing but it should never get in the way of functionality.

Widget color is dark grey, no option for black. This is either a dumb oversight or they are paywalling a color, won’t give money to find out which is which.

Process for adding your own shortcut is fine but doesn’t work if you already have a button with the same name, again poorly explained.

There is a lot of promise here but until the experience is actually good for the average user I would never support this financially.

At the end of the day, BlankSpacesLauncher is a very, very simple widget that launches other apps. It is an incredible way to simplify your phone without going to something more drastic like the Light Phone. However, the price is simply not tuned right for what you’re getting. $4.99 for a month or $23 for lifetime access is way, way too much. You can make an exact replica for free using Widgy, but I still would’ve paid happily if the price were right. I believe in this philosophy and want to support this, but the price just ain’t there. $4.99 total, okay, I could live with that. But $23? For a static widget? C’mon. This should be a slam dunk 5-star app I can recommend easily to anybody, but not for $23.

I really enjoy the central feature of BlankSpacesLauncher, which is the way it helps you create a minimalist Home Screen. However, the feature to lock apps doesn’t work consistently or as expected. Once I unlock an app for a specified amount of time, it doesn’t relock after the time period has ended. I contacted support and they suggested some extra actions I could take to manually get the apps to relock. Sometimes these work, but they are extra steps I have to take and I often forget to. It would be great if this feature worked as designed.

Good app, great app even. Its nice to not be distracted by icons -- but let's be honest it's a glorified Shortcuts app, which comes default with any iphone. I like BlankSpacesLauncher ! I do! But again, it's an "aesthetic" version of a free app that asks you to pay while trying the "invest in yourself" angle as if that type of marketing is ever genuine. Maybe it is, but I find anyone that finds a niche market (people who want to use their phone less/be less distracted by apps) and capitalizes on it to be untrustworthy.

The price at any tier is not totally absurd, but contributes to the practice of advertising an app as "free" but then not having any free option. I understand apps take development, and I do not have the skillset to just make this application myself, but I don't understand the pricing system. Again, i know it takes money to develop apps and keep them working through IOS updates and to fix bugs, but why would I pay for a "minimalist" version of what comes FREE on my iphone? Well, i guess I wont, so thats my problem.

BlankSpacesLauncher is fine. I think it should just be offered as an app you can only pay for all at once because the idea of spending four bucks a month on an app that keeps me off my phone... it seems silly.

I think i will just use the Shortcut app, make my icons the same color as my background, and go from there. The free trial was nice, but I don't think it's an app worth paying for.

I love the concept of BlankSpacesLauncher. I’m a lifetime subscriber and supporter. It’s truly helped me create a healthier relationship with my phone (as weird as that sounds). But it’s missing some basic functionality like having Apple’s default apps built into BlankSpacesLauncher instead of having to use shortcuts. Example: Calculator, Phone, and Clock. The developer said to use URL scheme but there’s nothing available on the internet (as far as I could find) for those. So, we’re stuck using shortcuts which makes BlankSpacesLauncher feel slow and kluge. I think adding more default apps should be a priority over more fonts and colors.

So, I’ve known about BlankSpacesLauncher for a while now and I finally downloaded it. Well every time I get done adding an app to my widget it shows the pay screen, and when I hit the X button it logs me out of the whole app. I open it again and I have to restart with an intro. And I’ve accidentally loaded one app 10 times on my widget so now it’s basically useless and does work. If it closes BlankSpacesLauncher whenever I don’t want to pay. Just make BlankSpacesLauncher cost money on BlankSpacesLauncher Store. So then stuff like this doesn’t happen. Or better yet. Maybe consider that someone without $22 is using BlankSpacesLauncher and doesn’t want to pay right away. Why should I pay for an app that I haven’t even used!? Anyway. 3 stars because I haven’t used BlankSpacesLauncher and don’t know what it has In store for me.

I really like the aesthetic and system of BlankSpacesLauncher but have two major issues that affect functionality. Right now, my weather location isn’t updating properly and it’s still stuck on a city I traveled to over a month ago. I’ve tried a few different ways to fix it but the weather widget is basically useless now because of that. The second is the delay when opening apps. I think because of how the shortcuts work, the extra time it takes to open apps I need usually makes me default to using BlankSpacesLauncher drawer, which then increases the chances of me getting distracted by another app. If there were some fixes to these issues, I would definitely have more positive things to say because I like the concept a lot.

I love how stylish this widget makes my phone look, but it's too finicky for me to use regularly.

BlankSpacesLauncher lets you create typographical lists of app shortcuts on your home screen. However, adding apps is a hassle because the search results often show irrelevant apps or give "No results found" if you scroll too fast.

Another drawback is that once you create a widget, you can't edit it; you have to start over if you want to make changes. Additionally, some apps aren’t currently supported so the workaround is for the Blank Spaces app to create a shortcut in your shortcuts library. But this shortcut is their to launch another shortcut already in your library. So when you finally have it setup and tap one of these shortcuts on your home screen, you’re taken to your Shortcuts library where it launches that actual shortcut.

These issues may be shortcomings of iOS itself. I don’t know.

Despite its aesthetic appeal, these usability issues make it challenging to stick with BlankSpacesLauncher.

Initial review:
I typically don’t write reviews. But I purchased BlankSpacesLauncher and now I can’t use it. When trying to add the apps to the BlankSpace widgets it only allows ten apps (which BlankSpacesLauncher does not express initially). Which isn’t a big deal, I just had not added the most important apps and wanted to edit them. Blank Space will not allow me to edit them. No matter what I do to alter the apps on the widget (adding a second or third widget, even deleting BlankSpacesLauncher , it’s data, and the iCloud data and reloading BlankSpacesLauncher ) and it still has the same locked in apps that I can’t change. And now the widget says it is full, but is typically without text. Because my most necessary apps are not there this was a waste.

Additional comments: Sometime after writing this initial review, BlankSpacesLauncher ’s widgets did start to function properly.
Now that everything works I have been enjoying BlankSpacesLauncher that performs the way it should.
It doesn’t entirely stonewall me from the apps I blocked, but it has enough road blocks to keep me accountable and on track.
I am editing my stars to 4 out of 5. The initial setup was very frustrating but now I am grateful that app is on my phone.

Used this for the last six months on the annual subscription and have now cancelled it and uninstalled. Still a 4 star app.

It did change how I interacted with my phone for sure. The “dumb phone”/bland home and lock screens and good notification management reduced pick ups and brought focus to why I was using the phone each pickup.

I’d prefer to have paid $10-20 as a one time purchase as there simply is not much content to BlankSpacesLauncher nor meaningful updates. It doesn’t really need updates for new content and >$10 per year for compatibility and stability updates seems a bit high.

Finally, the marketing about mindfulness and intent is useful to frame why BlankSpacesLauncher is good. But a home screen launcher is not the one tool that will revolutionize your digital life. All your flashy, tempting apps are still there… just a few taps and swipes harder to reach.

The price is a little much for what it is but it’s a good app and I like how much I can customize the menu. I got a matte screen protector as well and my whole phone feels exactly how I wanted after looking into all the types of dumb phones this seems to be the best option right now. What’s most annoying is BlankSpacesLauncher needs to be open for the widget buttons to work and if I close it, it just reopens. It’s a bit frustrating to have it always open and it’s the same for the shortcut apps but then you have Blank and Shortcuts always open. Wish they would fix this. I wouldn’t go back to how my phone was before regardless

Love BlankSpacesLauncher for a lot of reasons. I mostly just use it to lock myself out of distractions. The widget is cool, but a little too clunky for my personal taste (I use a lot of Shortcuts, and I think it’s just a limitation of iOS to get them to look nice when opened from a widget)

One feature I would love though is a widget with the ability to unlock all of my apps at once, after doing a breathing exercise, without having to unlock each app at a time and without having to open the Blank Spaces app.

Then I think BlankSpacesLauncher would be perfect for me. Kudos to the developer for making this :)

BlankSpacesLauncher does exactly what it says it’s going to done. My Home Screen is clean, minimal, and focused.

The major downsides/issues are:
- There’s only a predefined list of apps that you can add to your Home Screen list. All the major ones are covered, but we all have niche apps we use that won’t be available. I imagine this is a limitation of Apple, but it still hurts user experience. You’ll have to create Apple Shortcuts instead.
- I’d like either (1) a little bit more customization of how apps are assigned to widgets or (2) an infinitely scrollable widget. The separate pages with a fixed number of apps breaks up the flow/grouping of many of my apps.

This might be my first ever app review. BlankSpacesLauncher is amazing. It uses the “out of sight, out of mind” approach by offering a minimalist layout that is functional and effective. I set this up to turn my phone into more of a utility phone and it almost makes me wonder why I bought an iPhone 15 since my screen time has drastically dropped. I have been using BlankSpacesLauncher since my iPhone SE days. Which brings me to the point about how awesome the developer(s) are! When I set up BlankSpacesLauncher on my brand new iPhone 15, I noticed there was a glitch with setting up my Google Tasks Blank. I was pretty bummed and emailed the developer thinking it might take months until it gets resolved, however I got a reply within the next hour and the issue was fixed almost instantly. That dedication and professionalism is top tier! Since that interaction I paid for the full service and am a huge fan. The only con of BlankSpacesLauncher is there’s still plenty apps that need some support, but the most popular are already optimized for blank and the library has been expanding. Do not sleep on BlankSpacesLauncher!

I love BlankSpacesLauncher and the minimalistic style. There are a lot of clever mechanics at play for it to do what it does, and it has been immediately effective in reducing my phone time. I was so impressed with the novelty of BlankSpacesLauncher that I purchased the lifetime subscription within only a few days of testing it.

There may not be a solution to this, but the only critique I have is that I would love to see improved implementation of the animation for opening an app. Enabling “Reduce Motion” in the iOS settings partially works to alleviate this bit of clunkiness, but that also sacrifices a lot of other iOS animations that I would like to keep.

Unfortunately Apples Ecosystem and iOS limitations are the reasons why the setup and execution of BlankSpacesLauncher isn’t perfect. Considering the limitations these developers have done an excellent job.

One issue I have is my backgrounds don’t line up perfectly the widgets. I suspect it might have something to do with the new background features of iOS 17.2 as I’ve followed instructions properly. I don’t believed 17.2 includes “perspective zoom” anymore (I could be wrong) bur rather “extended wallpaper”. I also use an iPhone mini which might affect this as well.

Anyway, I love BlankSpacesLauncher . Take into consideration that these developers are limited due to constraints of iOS.

I literally don’t understand why anyone would rate BlankSpacesLauncher 1 star. It does exactly what it says it would do. I had an extremely easy set up experience, but highlight of BlankSpacesLauncher was the feeling of applying it. I don’t know about anyone else, but once I applied this to my phone and saw only my vital apps (no socials at all) like messages, notes, planner app, etc. on a plain text list in front of me, I genuinely felt liberated. I felt so free from distractions to do whatever I want. It felt like my internal war was literally over - it was crazy. I know this sounds dramatic but it changed my perspective. I’m so excited to have hours back in my life because I won’t be mindlessly scrolling anymore. Thank you developers.

BlankSpacesLauncher is everything I’ve been looking for and it’s working great! Anything that makes my phone less distracting is ideal. The shortcuts work well and it looks fantastic.

Previously, I had used BlankSpacesLauncher while still keeping all my distracting apps (social media, shopping, etc) downloaded on my phone and just out-of-sight in my App Library. That worked well for a bit to reduce distractions, but BlankSpacesLauncher alone wasn’t enough to reduce how addicting my phone can be. Since realizing that, I’ve deleted all shopping, entertainment, and non-work related social media apps from phone. I’ve turned on the “reduce motion”, “greyscale”, and “reduced white point” settings on my phone and it’s made a massive difference! I just ordered a matte tempered glass screen protector to help with the overall glare/intensity of the phone screen. I hope that’ll be the final piece to my “setup”!

BlankSpacesLauncher has been incredibly helpful in turning my phone back into a device that works as a tool, not an entertainment device. I can’t recommend it enough.

Anyone who is interested in getting less addicted to their phones and more involved with healthier activities should get BlankSpacesLauncher. Some people are resorting to buying a dumb phone, sometimes paying many hundreds of dollars for a new device like the light phone. This does pretty much the same thing for a fraction of the cost while also allowing you to access the internet or work related apps when necessary. Highly recommended!