The Play Store is broken. I do not mean the app review process or the discoverability algorithm, although both are also broken. I mean the basic assumption that an Android phone is a place to install software has been turned into a tracking apparatus. The default apps want your email. They want a phone number. They want persistent identifiers that follow you across every other app on the device, and across the web when the developer is also running ad networks. The “free” in free apps usually means “you are the product.” I spent a week testing three Android apps that do not work that way. One is fully open source. The other two are free to try with a one-time purchase to unlock everything. No subscriptions, no data mining, no ads that suddenly appear after a quiet update. Just software that does what it says.
I went in skeptical. The last time I tried to leave Google Keep, I ended up going back because nothing else had the combination of “works on my phone” and “syncs without a server I have to run myself.” The three apps below all made me rethink that. They each solve a different problem. None of them try to be a platform. None of them want a relationship with me beyond the install.
Easy Notes is Google Keep without the Google part
The first one worth your time is Easy Notes, especially if you have been stuck on Google Keep and want something that feels familiar but does not phone home. It looks clean and modern, following Google’s Material Design language, but every note lives in a local file on your device. No account, no cloud sync, no telemetry (the practice of apps sending usage data back to the developer), no analytics SDK (a third-party code library that tracks user behavior) sitting in the background counting your taps. Create a note by tapping the button in the corner, give it a title, type. The interface is what you would expect.
What makes it interesting is the Markdown support. Tap a formatting button and you see the Markdown syntax appear: hashtags for headers, asterisks for bold, the standard syntax most technical users already know. Hit the preview button and you see your formatted text instantly. It is the simplest Markdown editor I have found on Android, with none of the Obsidian-style complexity that makes those tools feel like work to set up. There is a word count display, which matters more than you think when you are drafting on a phone screen.
The catch is distribution. Easy Notes is open source, which means it is on F-Droid, not the Play Store. F-Droid is a free app catalog for open-source Android apps. You will need to enable installing apps from unknown sources, which on modern Android is a per-app permission rather than a system-wide toggle. If the phrase “sideload an APK” (installing an app manually instead of through a curated app store) makes you uncomfortable, this is friction you have to be willing to deal with. The trade is that the app does not depend on Google’s app store policies, Google’s review process, or Google’s ad network.
What makes Easy Notes worth the F-Droid install:
- All notes live locally in a file you control, with no cloud dependency
- Built-in Markdown editor with a live preview toggle
- Bulleted lists, checkboxes, and image insertion, the same primitives Keep has
- Word count display for drafting and editing workflows
- Fully open source, no ads, no tracking, no analytics
OneBattery tells you what your battery is actually doing
If you have ever wondered why your phone dies at 40% on a long day, OneBattery is the app that will answer the question. It replaces your lock screen with detailed battery information: charge percentage, temperature, voltage, estimated time remaining, all visible the moment you unlock. You do not even have to open the app to get value from it. The information is right there every time you pick up the phone.
Dig into the settings and you find the metrics that actually matter. Charging speed in watts tells you which cables and chargers are doing what they claim. Battery health estimates give you a number for how worn the cell is, which is useful when you are deciding whether to replace the phone. Per-app drain breakdowns show you which background services are quietly eating your battery. I have been surprised by how often I check it. The first week told me that one of my USB-C cables was charging at half the speed of the others, which explained why a “fast” charger felt slow.
The trade-off is aesthetic. The lock screen overlay is functional, not pretty. If you have carefully curated wallpaper, a clock widget, or a music control you actually use, OneBattery is going to cover them. You can toggle the overlay off, but then you are back to opening the app manually every time, which defeats the point. I keep it on, but I have also accepted that my lock screen is now a battery dashboard instead of a photo of my kid. Some people will hate this. I do not.
The metrics OneBattery surfaces on the lock screen and in the app:
- Real-time voltage and temperature, visible without unlocking the app
- Charging speed measurements so you can identify the fast cables
- Battery health estimates that update as the cell ages
- Per-app drain breakdown for the apps that are quietly eating your battery
- Customizable overlay so you pick which numbers go on the lock screen
KYBD Launcher replaces your home screen with a keyboard
KYBD Launcher is the most experimental of the three, and my favorite. It replaces your home screen with a keyboard-driven interface. You type the first few letters of an app name and it launches. That is the whole thing. No icons, no folders, no pages of apps you forgot you downloaded. The design is gorgeous in a way most minimal launchers miss. The typography, spacing, and animations feel intentional, like someone actually cared about how the letters move on screen.
I had a real adjustment period. The first day, I kept tapping where icons should be. By the second day, I was typing before I finished reaching for the screen. By the third day, I was launching apps faster than I ever did with the icon grid. The app drawer becomes unnecessary because everything is search. If you can type the name, you can launch it. The downside is muscle memory. If you switch back to a normal launcher, you will keep trying to type, and you will be surprised how slow icon-tapping feels.
The free tier is enough to know if you like the idea. The paid tier removes limits and adds customization like accent color (I would swap the orange for something that matches my phone). The free version is honest about what you are missing. The paid version is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, which is the right model for a launcher.
The text-first approach changes how a phone works:
- Type two or three letters of an app name to launch it
- No visual clutter from icons, folders, or multiple home pages
- Typography and animations that feel designed, not generated
- A free tier to test the idea before paying anything
- A one-time paid upgrade, not a subscription
Trade-offs
None of these apps are perfect, and the friction varies. Easy Notes is fully free and open source, but you have to install F-Droid, which is a hurdle for anyone who has not sideloaded before. OneBattery has a free version that is enough for most people, but the lock screen overlay covers whatever was there. KYBD Launcher has the steepest learning curve, and the muscle-memory adjustment is real even if the upside is real too.
Time is the first cost. Installing F-Droid, configuring third-party app sources, and learning a new launcher are not nothing. If you are not in a hurry, each of these can be tried on a quiet weekend afternoon. If you are, the time cost is the same as the time cost of learning any new tool.
Money is the second cost. Easy Notes is free. OneBattery has a free tier and a one-time unlock for the full feature set, which I have not paid for because the free tier is enough. KYBD Launcher has a one-time paid tier, not a subscription, which is the right model. None of them charge monthly. None of them auto-renew.
Features are the third cost, and the most subjective. Easy Notes does not have Google Keep’s collaborative editing. OneBattery does not have the polished UI of a vendor-built battery app. KYBD Launcher does not have the icon grid some people genuinely prefer. The cost is the features you give up, and the features you give up depend on which features you were using.
Upside is real too. A phone with three apps that do not phone home, do not show ads, and do not charge a subscription is a quieter phone. The cumulative effect, over a week of using these, is that the phone feels like a tool again instead of a slot machine. That is worth the install friction.
Bottom line
If you only install one: pick the app that solves a problem you actually have. Easy Notes if you take notes daily and want to leave Keep. OneBattery if you have ever been surprised by your battery dying. KYBD Launcher if you want a phone that feels calmer than the one you have. Give whichever one you pick at least three days before you decide. Interface habits die hard, and the second day is always the worst. If it does not stick, uninstall and try the next one. None of them cost you anything but a Saturday afternoon.