I was late to the mobile phone game, content with my iPod Touch instead of an iPhone. However, I did eventually need to get a mobile phone, and landed up with a second-hand Microsoft Lumia 950 XL on the cheap. Since then, and as that ecosystem was dying, I now use Android and have not looked back, though my time on Windows Phone still influences my mobile phone setup today, which I will write about in more detail in today’s post.

Launcher

One of the great benefits of Android is how easily it is to run FOSS applications, and I would like to tell you which lovely FOSS launcher I use, but due to my brief, but extensive use on Windows Phone, I sought out a similar experience on Android, which led me to choosing Square Home, and not changing, even after all these years!

Despite other mainstream launchers on Android, which utilise icons similar to those found on desktop computers, Windows Phone/Square Home is based on tiles, and these can be static or dynamic, occupying every pixel of space on your home screen.

I won’t attach a screenshot of mine (although I do personally think it looks stunning!), but I can describe it as having widgets for weather (Breezy Weather), calendar (Etar), and my to-do lists (Tasks), as well as folders for various apps and direct links to apps. I have managed to cram everything on my home screen into this one page, not scrolling downwards or to other pages. Instead, one swipe to the right reveals the app drawer, listing all the apps organised into relevant folders, which display the containing apps when tapped on. As such, my launcher runs only on these two pages: home screen and app drawer, with the app drawer the only page that scrolls.

Icons

I have configured the Square Home tiles to be transparent with black lines separating them, revealing my wonderful dynamic background behind (Muzei), and on top of these tiles are the FOSS icon pack Arcticons. Although the original Windows Phone titles featured flat white icons, I’ve found the fine white lines in Arcticons look incredibly stylish, and due to the large size of the icon pack (9000+!), most of my apps are covered. If not, Square Home makes it easy to select a suitable replacement.

Keyboard

It took me a while to find a keyboard I liked, and used an outdated OpenBoard for a while before switching to a fork called HeliBoard. I can adjust the size and colours as desired, it has good predictive text, and organised emojis, as well as a number of quickly accessible buttons such as accessing the clipboard, activating microphone (for when I cannot spell a word and spellcheck fails me), undo, redo and so on.

Apps

I’m a bit embarrassed as to how many apps I have installed on my phone, and it would take me a very long time to go through them all. So, I’ll just highlight a few select apps I use on a regular basis.

Aside from the applications mentioned above, I also use these, in no particular order:

• K-9 Mail

  • Email

• Markor

  • Markdown Editor

• Yutio

  • Mastodon Client

• Logseq

  • Note-Taking

• NewPipe/SponsorBlock

  • YouTube Client

• Firefox Focus

  • Internet Browser

• Signal

  • Communication

• Infinity for Reddit

  • Reddit Client

• Pocket Casts

  • Podcast Manager

• Symfonium

  • Music Player