Hi all, first post.
My sibling and I (as well as some friends) and tinkering with the idea of creating "dumb-ish" phones for each other. Phones that would offer us ONLY the tools that increase our efficiency and productivity at work and in life but no apps or programs that break focus or offer distraction. So a smart phone... that's kinda dumb. It would have whatsapp, maps, calculator, email etc - no social media, browser limited to only a few whitelisted sites, etc.
Some of what I am thinking of was covered here:
https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/13617-whitelist-websites-block-all-others
But here is where I need some help --
We've been researching this for a while now and had come up with the plan that we could create ourselves "de-googled" Pixel 8's, running GOS. Then on each other's phones we could create a separate user profile (U.P., separate from the Owner's Profile (OP)) which is what the end user would use on a daily basis. This UP would have the limited list of apps mentioned above and due to settings in the OP would not have the ability to add anything else. The friend that set up the OP would keep the password in a separate file elsewhere.
This seemed like a good plan but further research led to two obvious problems:
- If the daily user ever let their phone die and had to reboot, they would be locked out and would require the friend that set up the phone to reboot it. This is a killer as we all travel for work.
- App updates would not take place unless the OP was logged in to.
Does anyone have any suggestions for accomplishing this in such a way that the user of the phone is strictly limited to what is loaded on the device when we "build them" but is also not so reliant on a "password guarding" friend?
Further details if you're still curious:
The idea is to have a phone with Calls, SMS, Whatsapp, Signal, Email (Outlook and Proton), Maps, Notes, Calculator, Camera/Gallery, and a weather app. The browser would be blocked from all sites except for a few, namely banking websites and a few .gov sites.
Our primary goal is building a distraction free device. The added privacy that we can gain is an added bonus but not our primary goal.
We're pretty excited to make this work and potentially offer it to a wider group of friends, so we're even open to spending some cash to have some sort of app or something developed that would accomplish this. Like the app "Minimalist Phone" for Android but impossible to take it off the phone without doing a bunch of coding and is locked with a password separate from any of the passwords associated with the device (so that it can be set by a friend).
Looking forward to your feedback. TIA!
-C
(A very technically inept blue collar worker that is having a fun time learning this more technical side of things)