Kern: Minimalist Launcher

Kern is a minimalist, distraction-free launcher for Android, made for people who want their phone to be quick to use and easy to put down. Your home screen becomes a clock, four apps and nothing else. Everything you need is one gesture away, and nothing on it is trying to keep you scrolling.

FIND ANY APP IN TWO LETTERS
Swipe down and type. Kern's app search ranks rather than filters: it understands initials, typos and package names, learns which app you mean, and puts it first. The same box also finds shortcuts inside your apps, the phone's own settings screens ("wifi", "brightness"), your notes, quick sums, numbers to dial and addresses to open. All of it is computed on the phone.

A HOME SCREEN THAT STAYS OUT OF THE WAY
• A large, beautiful clock and your four favourite apps
• The whole app drawer, A to Z, with an alphabet arc and hidden apps
• Icon styles, accents, clock faces, light, dark and green grounds
• Widgets live on the side pages, not on your home screen

SCREEN TIME, COUNTED HONESTLY
The ledger shows your day as 144 ten-minute marks: when the screen was on, not only how long. It counts pickups, your longest stretch, time away, what you reach for first and late-night use, and compares today with your own recent days. No score, no lecture. Kern reads Android's own usage record, and it stays on the phone.

A PAUSE BEFORE THE APPS YOU FALL INTO
Choose an app and Kern holds the door for a few seconds before it opens, with a quiet "Not now". It is the simplest app blocker there is: you can still go in, you just decide to. Kern counts how often you turned back.

FOCUS MODE
Timed focus sessions block the apps you choose. Strict mode means a session cannot be ended early. A breathing exercise is one tap away.

NOTES AND TO-DO LISTS ONE SWIPE FROM HOME
Pages for notes, checklists and daily tasks, written in a small markdown-style grammar: "# " for a heading, "- " for a bullet, "[] " for a checkbox. Capture a thought to the inbox in a second. Lock your workspace behind the phone's own lock. Export everything as plain text.

MORE
• Notification shelf: everything waiting, on a page you choose to open
• Battery health measured from the phone's own charge counter, charge curves and an optional charge alarm at a level you choose, no root needed
• What Kern has done: your before and after, in your own numbers

PRIVATE BY DESIGN
No account. No sign-in. No ads. Your apps, notes, searches and screen time stay on your phone. Optional usage and crash reports are off until you turn them on. Superwall runs on every install for plans and purchases, and counts opens and sessions. The privacy policy lists exactly what it receives.

TRY EVERYTHING FOR 14 DAYS
Every feature is unlocked for 14 days, with no payment details asked. After that the launcher stays yours for good: the home screen, the whole drawer, app search, one notes page and the pause for one app, with no ads and no nagging. Full Measure unlocks the rest (the ledger, focus mode, unlimited pages, the pause for every app, deep search, widgets and every appearance option) as a yearly or monthly subscription. Nothing you have written is ever locked away.

Kern is made by one independent developer at Luna Maze. Questions and ideas: lunamaze.dev@gmail.com