Grandapp - Senior swiss knife

Grandapp puts the useful parts of a phone in one place, big enough to see and simple enough to use. It is built for people who find modern phones exhausting: eighteen tools, one screen, and nothing to set up.

Every tool is a large square with a picture and a line saying what it is for, not what it is called. Press it and it opens. Hold it and it stays among your favourites. One round button, always in the same corner, always takes you back.

When your eyes are tired
The magnifier turns the camera into a reading glass, up to eight times. Press Freeze and the picture stops, so you can read a medicine leaflet or a bill without holding your hand steady, and push it through a contrast or inverted filter when the print has faded.

Read aloud goes further: photograph a letter and the phone reads it to you, at three speeds. The recognition happens on the device.

When your ears are tired
The hearing tool sends the microphone straight to your earphones, louder, with a volume you set. Point the phone at whoever is talking, or leave it on the table at dinner. It is not a medical device: it makes sound louder, it does not correct a particular hearing loss.

When something goes wrong
SOS turns the phone into a beacon: the light flashes the distress signal, a siren sounds at alarm volume, the phone vibrates, and one button calls the person you chose once. Nothing starts by itself, and there is a big SOS button you can put on your home screen.

Quick calls gives four people four big squares. Press a face and the dialer opens with the number already entered.

Every day
Reminders for your medicines, on the days you take them, that survive a restart. A kitchen timer that keeps counting with the app closed and rings anyway. One note that is always there and saves itself. A calculator with four big keys and no surprises. A converter for lengths, weights, temperatures and money.

The odd jobs
A torch with a flashing and an SOS mode. A ruler in centimetres and inches you calibrate once against a bank card, because phones lie about their own screen size. A bubble level, in one dial or split into two axes. A compass. A QR reader. A scanner that turns paper into a proper file. A mirror. And your battery and free space in numbers you can read across the room.

Made to be readable
Text in three sizes, on top of whatever Android is already doing, because most people never find that setting. A high contrast mode that flattens every tile to the same strong pair. Light, dark and pure black. Colours taken from your wallpaper, animations everywhere, and the top bar hidden by default so the screen is yours.

It asks for almost nothing
No account, no ads, no analytics, no tracking. The camera is used by the magnifier and the mirror and records nothing. The microphone is used by the hearing tool and keeps nothing. Your contacts are never read: the system picker hands over one number, the one you chose. The only thing Grandapp fetches from the internet is the day's exchange rates for the converter, and that request says nothing about you.

Launcher mode
The app includes a Launcher mode, to make Grandapp your default home and use it with ease. Many useful settings are included in the advanced menu, plus a QR backup to get help in settings the app from a distance!