Inglenook Blog

Android Large Icon Size: How to Get Bigger Icons on Your Phone

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Small icons are one of the most common complaints from older Android users — and from the adult children trying to help them. Standard Android uses a fairly dense grid of icons sized for a general audience. For older adults with reduced vision, reduced dexterity, or simply smaller phones, hitting the right icon reliably is genuinely difficult.

Here are the three main ways to get bigger icons on Android, in order of how reliably they work.

Method 1: Android’s display size setting

The quickest approach — and the one that works on every Android phone — is Android’s built-in display size setting.

Open Settings
Tap Accessibility (or search “display size”)
Tap Display size and text (the exact label varies by manufacturer)
Drag the Display size slider to the right — towards “Large” or “Largest”

This makes everything on the phone bigger: icons, text, buttons, dialogs. The icons on the home screen will be noticeably larger.

Limitation: The icon grid stays the same. At “Largest” display size, you will have the same number of icons on the screen as before — they are just bigger. This means icons will start to overlap or clip on some home screen layouts. Whether that is acceptable depends on your parent’s specific phone and setup.

For many people, display size alone is enough. Try “Large” first and see how it goes.

Method 2: Manufacturer Easy Mode (Samsung only)

Some Android manufacturers include a simplified mode that, among other things, increases icon sizes. Samsung’s version is called Easy Mode.

To enable it on a Samsung phone:

Open Settings
Tap Display
Tap Easy mode
Toggle it on

Samsung Easy Mode increases icon sizes significantly, reduces the number of home screen panels, and simplifies the interface. It is a reasonable option if your parent already has a Samsung phone and you want a quick win without installing anything.

Limitations:

Easy Mode is Samsung-specific. There is no equivalent on Pixel, Motorola, Nokia, or most other Android phones.
The icon grid and layout are fixed — you cannot choose which apps appear or customise the layout the way you can with a dedicated home app.
It is not carer-configurable. Your parent sees whatever Samsung decided to show, not a layout you have tailored for them.

Method 3: A dedicated large-icon home app

The most reliable way to get genuinely large icons — and the most useful for older adults overall — is to install a dedicated home app that replaces the standard Android home screen.

Apps like Inglenook use a large-icon grid that is designed specifically for older users. The grid shows a small number of apps per screen — typically four to six — with icons significantly larger than even the “Largest” display size setting produces.

The key advantages over the first two methods:

Works on any Android phone. Not just Samsung. Not dependent on manufacturer-specific features.

You control the layout. You choose which apps appear, where they appear, and which contacts are pinned to the home screen. Your parent sees exactly what you configured, nothing more.

The tiles cannot be accidentally rearranged. Standard Android home screens can be disrupted by a long press or an accidental drag. A dedicated home app pins the tiles in place — your parent can tap them, but cannot move or delete them.

Contacts on the home screen. The most important thing most older adults use their phone for is calling family. A senior home app puts those contacts — with photos — directly on the home screen. One tap to call.

Which approach is right for which situation?

Situation	Recommended approach
Quick improvement, any Android phone	Display size setting (Method 1)
Already have a Samsung, want no installs	Easy Mode (Method 2)
Want genuinely large icons, any phone	Dedicated home app (Method 3)
Want to control exactly what your parent sees	Dedicated home app (Method 3)
Parent keeps accidentally rearranging the home screen	Dedicated home app (Method 3)

In practice, the display size setting and a dedicated home app work well together. Turn up the display size to increase text throughout the phone, and install a home app to get a clean, large-icon home screen that you control.

Trying Inglenook

Inglenook is free to download from the Google Play Store. Install it on your own phone first — ten minutes is enough to see whether the icon size and layout feel right. When you are ready to set it up on your parent’s phone, the installation guide walks through the whole process.

How to Make an Android Phone Easier for Seniors

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If a parent or relative is struggling with their Android phone, the problem is almost always the same: standard Android was not designed with older adults in mind. The icons are too small, the notifications are overwhelming, and the home screen is a cluttered mess that somehow gets worse every time an app updates.

The good news is that this is fixable. Here is what actually works — in order of impact.

Step 1: Display and accessibility settings

Before touching any apps, change the phone’s built-in display settings. These affect the whole phone and take about two minutes.

Font size and display size — Go to Settings → Accessibility → Display size and text. Increase both font size and display size. “Large” is a good starting point; “Largest” if your parent is finding text genuinely hard to read. These settings make everything on the phone — not just apps — bigger and easier to read.

Bold text — On the same screen, turn on Bold text. Small but genuinely helpful for readability.

Remove animations (optional) — Go to Settings → Developer options → Window animation scale / Transition animation scale and set both to 0.5x or off. Faster, less confusing transitions. This option may be hidden; search “animation” in Settings to find it.

These changes cost nothing and have immediate impact. Do them before anything else.

Step 2: Simplify the home screen

Display settings make things bigger. They do not fix the core problem: too many things on the home screen, too many notifications, and a layout that can be accidentally rearranged.

The most effective fix is to replace the home screen entirely with a dedicated senior home app. Apps like Inglenook replace the standard Android home screen with a simple grid of large tiles — the apps and contacts your parent actually uses, nothing else.

Once installed, the home app stays exactly as you configure it. Your parent cannot accidentally rearrange the tiles, and they will never see an “add to home screen” prompt or a settings wizard.

You configure it once. They use it every day.

Step 3: Pin the contacts they call most

The most important thing most older adults do with their phone is call their family. Make this as easy as possible.

A good senior home app lets you pin family contacts — with photos — directly onto the home screen. One tap to call. No navigating to the Phone app, no searching through a contacts list.

If you are using a standard Android home screen without a senior home app, you can create a contact shortcut on the home screen by long-pressing an empty area and selecting Widgets → Contact. It is less elegant, but better than nothing.

Step 4: Turn off unnecessary notifications

Notifications are the single biggest source of confusion and distress for older Android users. Most of them are from apps your parent does not use, cannot understand, and cannot dismiss without accidentally opening something.

Go to Settings → Notifications → App notifications. Turn off notifications from every app except the ones that genuinely matter — typically Phone and Messages. Be generous with the off switch. You can always turn individual notifications back on later.

While you are there, turn off notification dots (the little badge numbers on icons) if they are causing confusion.

Step 5: Practise before you hand it back

Do not just set up the phone and walk away. Spend ten minutes practising with your parent before you leave.

Ask them to call you from the home screen. Ask them to open the camera and take a photo. Ask them to send a message. Watch how they do it — not to judge, but to spot anything that is still clumsy. If something is not right, fix it now. Do not leave it for next time.

The muscle memory your parent builds in those ten minutes is what will carry them through until your next visit.

Step 6: Long-term maintenance

Once the phone is set up properly, it mostly stays that way. The main thing that breaks a simple setup is:

App updates that add new icons to the home screen
Android system updates that reset some settings
Your parent accidentally navigating somewhere they did not expect to go

Check the phone on each visit. Restart it if it has not been restarted in a while. Remove any apps that have appeared since your last visit. Run through the home screen and notification settings once a year.

A simple phone that gets occasional maintenance is far better than a complicated phone that never does.

The one change that makes the biggest difference

If you only do one thing from this list, replace the home screen with a dedicated senior home app. Display settings help, notification management helps, but a simplified home screen is the thing that actually changes how easy the phone feels day-to-day.

Download Inglenook for free and install it on your own phone first — ten minutes is enough to see whether the approach is right for your parent.

What Is a Senior Home App? (And Why Android Needs One)

Mon, 11 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If you have searched for “senior launcher” or “easy launcher for Android”, you have probably noticed that the results are a mix of apps with varying quality, outdated reviews, and marketing that ranges from clinical to condescending. This post explains what this category of app actually is, what to look for, and who it is genuinely for.

The problem with standard Android for older users

Android is a powerful operating system designed for general use. That means it is optimised for the average user — someone who is comfortable with small icons, multiple home screen pages, notification badges, settings menus nested four levels deep, and a home screen that can be accidentally rearranged.

For many older adults, this is a poor match. The icons are too small. The notifications are confusing. The menus are hard to navigate. And the home screen rearranges itself just when they have finally learned where everything is.

None of this is the user’s fault. It is a design mismatch.

What a senior home app actually does

A senior home app — also called a home screen replacement — is a normal Android app that takes over the phone’s home screen. Once installed, every time the user unlocks the phone or presses the home button, they see the home app’s interface instead of the standard Android home screen.

Crucially, the rest of Android is unchanged. The Phone app, the Camera, the Settings, the Play Store — all still there. The home app is just a friendlier front door.

Because it is a regular Android app, you can install it on any phone your parent already owns. And if you ever want to switch back to the standard Android home screen, it is two taps in Settings.

A note on terminology

You may have seen these apps referred to as “senior launchers”, “easy launchers”, or “accessible launchers”. In Android, the technical term for the home screen app is a “launcher” — it is the thing that launches other apps. So “senior launcher” and “senior home app” mean exactly the same thing.

We call Inglenook a home app rather than a launcher because “launcher” is jargon that most users find confusing. But if you arrived here from a “senior launcher” search, you are in exactly the right place.

What to look for

Not all senior home apps are equal. Here is what separates the good ones from the mediocre.

Genuinely large tiles

The icons should be unambiguously large — not slightly larger than stock Android, but designed with older adults in mind. Look for a grid that shows at most six items per screen. Anything denser is not really a senior home app.

Family contacts on the home screen

For most older adults, the most important thing their phone does is let them call their family. A good senior home app treats contacts as a first-class feature: you pin the people who matter most, with a photo and a large name label, right on the home screen. One tap to call.

No account, no subscription, no cloud dependency

Be sceptical of any app that requires you to create an account, pay a monthly fee, or connect to a remote service. The phone does not need another password, another bill, or another company’s server to depend on. Everything should live on the device.

Carer-configurable, then invisible

The person setting up the phone is almost never the person using it. A well-designed senior home app lets you configure it once — choosing the apps, pinning the contacts, setting the layout — and then stays exactly as you left it. Your parent should never see a settings screen.

Works on the phone they already own

A senior home app should work on any Android phone, not require a specific device or manufacturer. Your parent’s existing phone is almost certainly good enough.

How Inglenook approaches this

Inglenook was built to meet all five criteria above. Large tiles sized for confident tapping. Family contacts pinned to the home screen with photos. Free, no account, no cloud. Configured by you once, then invisible. Works on any Android phone running Android 8.0 or later.

We built it because we could not find an existing app that met all five criteria without compromise.

Who this is not for

A senior home app is not right for everyone.

If your parent needs a fully locked-down device — one where they cannot accidentally access any settings, install apps, or make unauthorised calls — you may need a dedicated “senior phone” product or a managed device solution. These exist and are the right choice for some families.

If your parent is perfectly comfortable with the standard Android setup and would resent having it changed without being asked, leave it alone. The goal is to help, not to impose.

How to try it

The best way to evaluate any senior home app is to install it on your own phone first. Spend ten minutes with it. See whether the tile size feels right, whether the contact pinning works the way you expect, and whether you could hand it over to your parent with confidence.

Try Inglenook for free on your own phone first, then follow the installation guide when you are ready to set it up on your parent’s device.

Why I Built Inglenook

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There’s a particular kind of helplessness that comes from watching someone you love struggle with something that should be simple.

For me, it was phone calls with my mum. She has multiple sclerosis, and the calls we’d have on Skype would often drift — mid-conversation — into me walking her through something on her phone. An app she couldn’t find. A setting that had moved. A tap she’d tried three times but couldn’t land. Every time I visited home, there’d be a queue of small things to sort out.

She wasn’t doing anything wrong. The phone was.

It wasn’t her — it was the phone

I’m a professional Android software developer. I’ve worked on Android apps used by tens of millions of people. So when I looked at my mum’s phone — a Pixel on the standard Android launcher, with the display size cranked up as far as I could push it — I could see exactly what was wrong.

MS affects her motor control. Moving her arm and fingers precisely enough to tap small targets is genuinely difficult. But the standard Android home screen isn’t just small — it’s also unpredictable. Icons rearrange themselves when new apps are installed. Apps get buried in folders. Swiping up to get to the app drawer is a gesture that exists nowhere in the physical world. You have to learn it. And once you’ve learned it, you have to remember it.

I looked at the existing “senior” home screen apps and found them either too clinical — the kind of thing that felt like a medical device, not a phone — or clearly built by people who don’t do this work professionally. Half-finished layouts, poor tap targets, accessibility as an afterthought.

I decided to build something properly.

One month, evenings and weekends

I spent a month working on Inglenook in the evenings and at weekends. The design decisions were guided almost entirely by one question: what does my mum actually need to do on her phone?

The answer was simple: call and message the family. Open a handful of apps. Not get confused.

So Inglenook has large, tappable app icons laid out in a consistent alphabetical grid — they never move. There are no hidden gestures. Favourite contacts sit right on the home screen as cards with photos, so calling someone is two taps from unlock. Everything is big. Everything stays where you put it.

When I installed it on her phone, her reaction told me everything I needed to know. The look on her face, and hearing her say it was great — that it made her happy — was exactly what I’d hoped for.

Who this is for

My mum’s situation isn’t unusual. MS, Parkinson’s, the general changes that come with ageing — all of them can make a standard smartphone feel hostile. The phone hasn’t kept up with the people who need it most.

There are ways to help, at every level: simple accessibility settings built into Android and iOS, purpose-built apps like Inglenook, and hardware solutions for more significant needs. The right answer depends on the person. But the starting point is the same for everyone: connectivity matters. Being able to call a family member, send a message, or video chat with a grandchild isn’t a luxury. It’s how people stay part of each other’s lives.

If you’re reading this because someone you care about is struggling with their phone, I built Inglenook for you too. It takes about ten minutes to set up, and you hand it over knowing it won’t shift under them.

Get Inglenook on Google Play — it’s free.

Inglenook Launches Android Home App Built for Older Adults

Mon, 04 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

EDINBURGH, 4 MAY 2026 — Inglenook today launched its first Android home app, a purpose-built replacement for the standard Android home screen aimed at older adults who find conventional smartphone interfaces difficult to navigate. The app is available now on Google Play.

Inglenook replaces the default Android home screen with a focused layout: a clock, a grid of favourite apps, and a strip of pinned contacts. The design removes the visual clutter common to stock Android while preserving full access to installed apps through a searchable all-apps screen.

The app is aimed primarily at older adults who use their phones for a limited set of tasks — calls, messages, and a handful of apps — but are slowed down or frustrated by interfaces designed for a much broader range of interactions. Family members and carers are the expected primary installers, setting up Inglenook on a parent or relative’s device.

Contacts at the centre

A central design decision in Inglenook is the prominence of the contacts panel. Rather than requiring users to open a dialler or contacts app, Inglenook surfaces a two-column grid of pinned contacts directly on the home screen. Tapping a contact places a call immediately, with the required system permissions handled at first use. A contact detail sheet provides a larger photo and additional options without navigating away from the home screen context.

Setup guided by onboarding

Inglenook includes a six-step onboarding flow that walks new users — or the family member setting up the device — through adding favourite apps, pinning contacts, and setting Inglenook as the default home app. Default launcher detection is automatic: the onboarding advances without manual steps once the change is confirmed in Android settings.

Display and accessibility controls

The settings panel covers background type and colour, theme mode, high-contrast display, and text size — the last of which links directly to Android’s system accessibility settings rather than duplicating them. Contact and app grid columns are configurable. All interactive elements include haptic feedback.

“I built Inglenook for my mum, who has multiple sclerosis and finds her phone increasingly difficult to use,” said Edward Harker, who built Inglenook. “I wanted her to be able to call us without having to think about it. Watching her pick it up and just use it — without asking for help — is exactly what I hoped for.”

Inglenook is free to download and is available now on Google Play.

About Inglenook

Inglenook makes Android home apps for older adults and the families who support them. The app replaces the standard Android home screen with a calm, focused interface built around calls, contacts, and everyday apps. More information is available at inglenook.app.

Introducing Inglenook: A Simpler Android Home App for Your Parents

Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If someone you love is struggling with their phone, the problem usually isn’t the person — it’s the phone.

Standard Android home screens are built for people who want to do everything: manage apps, customise widgets, swipe between pages, dig into folders. For an older adult who mainly wants to call family and open a handful of apps, that complexity isn’t just unnecessary — it actively gets in the way.

Inglenook is a free Android home app that replaces the default home screen with something quieter. The layout is simple by design: a clock, a grid of favourite apps, and a strip of pinned contacts. The apps sit in a consistent alphabetical grid — they never move, never rearrange, never get buried. Pinned contacts sit right on the home screen as photo cards. Tapping one places a call in two taps from unlock. No dialler, no searching through a contacts list.

Everything stays where you put it.

Set up once, hand it over

Inglenook is designed to be configured by whoever manages the phone — a daughter, a son, a carer — and then handed over. A short onboarding flow walks you through adding favourite apps, pinning contacts, and setting Inglenook as the default. After that, there’s nothing for your parent to figure out.

Available now

Inglenook is free to download. Head to the Google Play Store to install it, then follow our getting started guide to set it up in a few minutes.

A Carer's Guide to Managing Your Parent's Phone

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If you are the person in the family who gets phoned whenever something goes wrong with Mum or Dad’s phone, this guide is for you. It is not a lecture on the theory of accessibility. It is a checklist of the things that actually work — built for adult children and carers managing a senior’s Android phone — around the pattern almost every carer eventually arrives at: set it up once, properly, and then stop fiddling with it.

The pattern: set up once, hand over, leave alone

Every carer we talk to has, by trial and error, converged on the same approach. It goes like this:

On a visit, take the phone for thirty minutes.
Configure it carefully so the things your parent actually does are on the home screen and nothing else is.
Hand it back.
Do not tinker with it remotely.
Check in on it on your next visit.

The reason this works is that older parents — like everyone else — learn a phone by building muscle memory. “Tap the top-left tile to call Sarah.” “Tap the bottom-right tile for the camera.” If you move those tiles around, you break the muscle memory, and the next phone call you get will start with “I cannot find anything any more.”

Stability matters more than perfection. A slightly imperfect setup that does not change is better than a perfect setup that changes every week.

Common pain points (and what to do about them)

Most of the phone calls you will get from your parent fall into a small number of categories. Here are the ones we hear about most often.

”I cannot find the phone app any more”

Almost always caused by the phone accidentally rearranging itself — an app was dragged, a folder was created, or an update shuffled the home screen. The fix is to stop the home screen from being editable in the first place.

The most reliable way to do this is to install a dedicated Android home app like Inglenook that pins the tiles you choose and does not let them be dragged around. Your parent can tap tiles, but cannot accidentally rearrange or delete them.

”It keeps showing me messages I do not understand”

Usually notifications from apps that your parent does not use — WhatsApp groups they were added to, game invitations, promotional emails, battery saver prompts, “rate this app” pop-ups. The combination of unfamiliar sources and unclear actions causes real distress.

Work through the Settings → Notifications list and turn off notifications from every app except the ones that genuinely matter — typically Phone, Messages, and perhaps one or two specific apps they have asked for. Be generous with the off switch. It is easier to turn a notification back on later than to explain what a Google Play Services alert is.

”I keep pressing the wrong thing”

Often a targets-too-small problem (covered in Making Phones Accessible). The fix is larger tiles with clear labels, fewer items on the home screen, and — if the problem is severe — turning up Android’s system font and display size in Settings → Accessibility.

”The phone is full / slow / broken”

Usually not broken. Usually a combination of too many background apps, too many notifications, and a couple of updates that need installing. On your next visit, restart the phone, install any pending updates, and uninstall any apps your parent has not opened in months.

Your thirty-minute visit checklist

Here is a practical checklist you can run through on your next visit, in roughly the order we recommend. The whole thing takes about half an hour the first time, and ten minutes on follow-up visits.

Before you arrive

Make sure your own phone has a charger that fits your parent’s phone (you may need to charge it during setup).
If the phone is particularly old or full, consider whether it is worth installing Inglenook in advance on a test phone so you can show your parent what it will look like.

First ten minutes: triage

Check the Android version and install any pending system updates.
Make sure the phone has signal, Wi-Fi, and enough charge to work on.
Take a quick look at the home screen and note what is actually there. What has crept on since your last visit?
Ask your parent: “What has been annoying you about the phone since I was last here?” Write it down.

Next ten minutes: simplify

Install or open Inglenook and set the home screen to the tiles your parent actually uses — probably Phone, Messages, Camera, and two or three specific apps.
Pin the three to six people they call most often as favourite contacts, each with a photo.
Turn off notifications from every app except the ones that matter.
In Android’s accessibility settings, bump up display size, font size, and bold text if you have not already.
Confirm emergency contacts and medical info are filled in under Settings → Safety & emergency.

Last ten minutes: practise

Ask your parent to call you from the home screen. Watch how they do it.
Ask them to open the camera. Take a photo together.
Ask them to send a message. Walk through it once.
If anything felt clumsy, fix it now — do not leave it for “next time”.

That is the whole visit. Write down any small irritations that you spot and deal with them next time; the list will get shorter every visit.

What about remote support?

At the moment, Inglenook is a single-device app — you configure it on your parent’s phone in person, and that is that. We get asked often about remote management: a web dashboard where you could tweak the favourites, hide an app, or fix something without having to drive over. That is genuinely on our list for the future, and we will write about it properly when it is ready. For now, Inglenook is deliberately one device, one configuration, no cloud.

In the meantime, the set-up-once pattern works well enough for most families. The whole point is that once the phone is simple, it mostly stops needing maintenance.

A note on tone

One last thing — and it is the most important one. The way you talk about the phone with your parent matters. A phone that is too complicated is not your parent’s fault. It is a design failure that happens to almost every older user of a smartphone. When you are making changes, frame them as “tidying up the phone” or “making it easier to find the things you use”, not “fixing” it. Nobody wants to feel that they are the problem.

Ready to start

Download Inglenook for free, install it on your own phone first so you are familiar with it, and then follow the installation guide on your parent’s phone during your next visit. Half an hour of setup now saves many hours of troubleshooting later.

Best Simple Android Home Apps for Seniors and Elderly Parents in 2026

Fri, 20 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

If you have landed on this page, you are probably part of a very specific group: adult children trying to make an Android phone less overwhelming for a parent in their seventies, eighties, or nineties. The good news is that the category of “simplified Android home apps” has grown up a lot in recent years. The bad news is that the choices are confusing, the reviews are inconsistent, and the marketing tends to be grim.

This post is a guide to picking the right one. We will be upfront: we make Inglenook, one of the apps in this category. Rather than pretending to be neutral, we will tell you what we think a good simplified home app should do, and where Inglenook fits against those criteria. You can decide for yourself.

What a simplified Android home app actually does

An Android home app (sometimes called a home screen replacement) is a normal app that takes over the phone’s home screen. Once installed, you see its interface every time you unlock the phone or press the home button. The rest of Android — the Settings app, the Play Store, the Phone app — is all still there, unchanged. The home app is just a friendlier front door.

That means you can install one on any Android phone your parent already owns. You are not locked into a special “senior phone” with its own hardware, its own accessories, and its own support team. If your parent ever wants the standard Android experience back, it is two taps in Settings.

What to look for

Not all simplified home apps are equal. Here is what we think matters when you are choosing one for an older parent.

1. Genuinely large, readable tiles

The whole point is that icons and labels should be big. Not “slightly bigger than default” but unambiguously easy to hit, even with shaky hands or reduced vision. Some apps in this category have made their tiles only marginally larger than the standard Android home screen. That is not enough.

Look for a grid of tiles that fills the screen with at most six or nine items — not a dense grid of twenty.

2. Favourite contacts on the home screen

Phone calls are the single most important thing most older parents do with their phone. A good simplified home app treats contacts as first-class citizens, not as something tucked three taps away. Pinning Mum’s sister or the next-door neighbour straight onto the home screen, with a photo and a large name, is the most important thing a simplified home app can do.

3. No account, no subscription, no cloud

Be sceptical of any “senior phone” app that asks you to create an account, pay a monthly fee, or sign the phone up to a service. Your parent’s phone does not need another bill, another password, and another company’s server to depend on.

A good simplified home app should work entirely on the phone itself. The data — the favourites, the layout, the settings — should live on the device and nowhere else. That is both simpler and more private.

4. Carer-configurable, then invisible

The person setting up the phone is almost never the person using it. A well-designed home app acknowledges this: you configure it once, hand the phone over, and your parent should never have to see a setup screen, a tutorial, or a permissions prompt again. The app should fade into the background and just show the tiles.

5. Respects the rest of the phone

A simplified home app should not try to hide Android from the user entirely. Your parent still needs the camera, still needs emergency SOS, still needs lock screen notifications, still needs the Play Store if they ever want to install something new. Good home apps change the home screen and nothing else — they do not try to build a walled garden on top of Android.

6. Free, or at least honest about pricing

We think home apps in this category should be free. The people using them already own a phone, already pay for a SIM, already pay for their broadband. An extra subscription for a simpler home screen feels wrong.

If you do decide to pay for a home app, at least make sure the pricing is plain and the app is not using dark patterns to push you onto a higher tier.

What about Android’s built-in Easy Mode?

Some Android phones — particularly Samsung devices — have a built-in “Easy Mode” or “Simple Mode” accessible from the Settings app. These are worth knowing about. They typically increase icon sizes, reduce the number of home screen panels, and simplify the notification shade.

The limitation is that they are manufacturer-specific. Samsung Easy Mode is only available on Samsung phones. There is no equivalent on a Pixel, a Motorola, or a Nokia. They are also not configurable by the person doing the setup — what the user sees is what the phone decided, not a layout you have tailored for them.

A dedicated home app works on any Android phone and is configured entirely by you. That is a significant advantage if your parent already owns a non-Samsung device, or if you want to control exactly which apps and contacts appear on screen.

Where Inglenook fits

We built Inglenook because we could not find an Android home app for our own parents that met all six of the criteria above. So here is how Inglenook measures up against them — honestly.

Large tiles, front and centre. Inglenook uses a grid of tiles sized for readability first, density second. You can fit a few favourite apps and contacts on one screen, and that is the point.
Favourite contacts are a core feature. You pin the people who matter most with photos, and your parent can call them in two taps.
No account, no subscription, no cloud. Inglenook is free. It does not sign your parent up for anything. It does not phone home, and it does not have a server to phone home to.
Carer-configurable. You set it up once, usually on a visit. After that, your parent sees tiles and nothing else. No setup wizards, no “what’s new” pop-ups, no upsells.
Plays nicely with the rest of Android. Inglenook replaces the home screen and leaves everything else alone. Camera, notifications, Play Store, emergency calls — all untouched.
Free, permanently. No tiers, no trial, no “pro” version holding the good features behind a paywall.

Things Inglenook deliberately does not do

To set expectations properly, here is what Inglenook is not:

It is not a full replacement for Android. Your parent will still see the standard Android notification shade, settings, and lock screen.
It does not filter calls or block scam messages. Android’s own built-in tools and the phone’s dialler app handle that.
It does not include remote support or carer dashboards today. That is on our roadmap, but the current version is a one-device app.
It does not replace accessibility features like TalkBack, high contrast, or Live Caption. Those are part of Android itself, and Inglenook works alongside them.

If you need a locked-down tablet-like experience with a call centre on the other end, there are dedicated “senior phone” products for that. They cost more, they lock you to specific hardware, and they are genuinely the right choice for some families. For most people, though, a simple home app on a normal Android phone is enough.

Not every parent wants a simplified phone

One last honest note. Some older parents are perfectly happy with the standard Android experience and would be mildly offended if you swapped their home screen out without asking. That is completely reasonable. The goal is not to make every older phone look the same — it is to offer an alternative when the default is clearly not working.

If your parent has mentioned that the phone feels too busy, that they cannot find things, or that they are nervous about tapping the wrong icon, a simplified home app is worth trying. If they are happily messaging friends and watching videos on the stock setup, leave it alone.

Ready to try it

Download Inglenook for free, install it on your own phone first, and see if it fits. When you are ready to set up your parent’s phone, follow the installation guide — the whole process takes about five minutes.