Phone
Favourites, search, everyone you know. Big type. Easy to hit.
HowYour real address book, live. Recents only log calls you placed from here.
Reference
Manual
What is in it, how to set the phone up, and a few things worth knowing. Boring on purpose. The app is the fun part.
- 13 sections
- 11 setup steps
- Ten minutes
Start here3 moves
The short version of setting up. Every step is further down, and you can stop after any of them.
What's inside13
Every row on the launcher, what it is for and how it works.
Music
Your files, or the library already on the phone, under a click wheel you can run by feel.
HowDrop files in over USB or AirDrop, FLAC included. Or play what is already on the phone. No streaming service.
Podcasts
Search, subscribe, download, sleep timer. Shows you asked for.
HowPlain RSS. Downloads keep going with the app closed. Where you left off follows you.
Camera
The viewfinder is already black and white. Friends come back looking like a memory.
HowEvery shot lands on its own roll, crushed to two colours as you take it.
Maps
A map in pixels, with your pins. Enough to get there. Nothing to doomscroll.
HowEvery mark is ours, so anything with a label is tappable. Turn by turn hands off to Apple Maps.
Web
One page at a time. READ pulls the article. PAGE keeps the layout and kills the colour.
HowAds blocked, scripts off until you allow a site, images optional, video refused. A terrible place to lose an hour.
News
Feeds you picked. Nothing else gets in. Then it ends.
HowRSS. You subscribe, it arrives, you finish. Full articles, not ragebait headlines.
Calendar
Month, day, editor. Hold a gap to start something.
HowYour real calendars. Write here, see it in Apple's Calendar, and the other way round.
Reminders
Your real lists, including whatever you told Siri in the car.
HowSame lists as Reminders. Tick it here, it is ticked everywhere.
Notes
Plain text files, voice memos in the same list. No formatting rabbit hole.
HowNotes are .txt you can drag off over USB. Voice memos are .m4a beside them.
Clock
Alarms, a timer on a split flap board, a stopwatch.
HowReal system alarms on iOS 26. Notifications below that, quiet on Silent.
Games
Klondike, minesweeper, snake on a drawn keypad, Brick on the wheel, Stack on a drawn handheld.
HowNo leaderboards, no accounts, no ads. Back seat of a long drive energy.
Settings
Day or night, type size, pixel face, wheel mode, which rows show, what syncs.
HowHide any section. The widgets follow. Nothing gets deleted.
Set up your phone11
Under ten minutes. Nothing gets deleted. These are the iPhone's steps: on Android the app walks you through its own, which can make 1bit your home screen.
place a widget
Hold the home screen until the icons wobble, tap +, find 1bit, pick a size and tap Add Widget.
the launcher
The large widget is your launcher. Tap a row and you land in that screen. Put it at the top. Long press, Edit Widget if you want to pick the rows yourself.
clock and today
Add a small clock and a medium today underneath. There is a button widget too, for one feature a single press away.
your day
Today reads your calendar and reminders. 1bit asks for both here. Skip it if you like; it is a switch under settings, today.
one page
Hold the home screen, tap the dots along the bottom, and untick every page except the one with your widgets. Nothing is deleted. Everything else stays in the App Library.
black wallpaper
Settings, Wallpaper, a plain black one for lock and home. Turn depth effects off.
grayscale
Optional. Settings, Accessibility, Display & Text Size, Color Filters, Grayscale. Set the Accessibility Shortcut to Color Filters and a triple click brings colour back.
quiet
Make a Focus that only lets calls and messages from your favourites through, and leave it on.
your music
Drop folders into Finder, your phone, Files, 1bit. Or switch Music's source row to the library already on this phone.
pick a font
Settings, font. Six pixel faces. Pick whichever you like reading.
action button
If you have one: Settings, Action Button, Open App, 1bit.
Reference4
Where your things live and what leaves the app.
What syncs
Sync is iCloud between your own devices. No account of ours. Each kind of thing is a switch, and the app works with all of them off.
Decisions travel: feeds, positions, notes, pins, playlists, alarms. Photographs travel too, once you switch them on. Recordings stay on the phone that made them.
Getting music on
Plug in and open Finder, your phone, Files, 1bit. Drop folders in. AirDrop reaches the same place. MP3, AAC, WAV, AIFF and FLAC all play.
Or skip that: Music's source row switches to the library already on the phone and plays those songs where they sit.
Gestures worth knowing
- Hold a time on the calendar day timeline to start an event there.
- Throw the transport bar sideways to stop playback for good.
- Swipe a News row for what you can do to it.
- Hold an artist, an album or a song in Music to add it to a playlist.
- Tap three times on the blank strip at the foot of the launcher.
Where the hand-offs go
Four things leave with one tap: a call to the dialler, a message to Messages or Signal or WhatsApp, turn by turn to Apple Maps, and a library track the media server will not stream to the Music app.