Tempo

An ultra-minimal Android launcher: airy washi paper, Japanese typography, no distractions.

⬇ Download the latest APK

Why this exists

I doom-scroll. A lot. I went looking for a way out, and the best one I could come up with was to lock myself out, a launcher that blocks the apps for good. Not "hidden until I cave," not "back in a tap." For good. I mean it. And yes, the whole thing is in Japanese, a language I can't speak, because friction is the point.

eddiegulay

Tempo is a home-screen replacement that does three quiet things well: tell the time, find an app, and show your notifications, on a calm, paper-cream canvas with a single vermillion accent. It was designed around one idea: peace, no distractions.

     

_{Home (ホーム)  ·  Search (検索)  ·  Notifications (通知)}

Features

• Home: a faint sumi-e ensō behind a large mincho clock, the date in vertical Reiwa-era kanji (令和八年・六月十七日・水曜日), a live spoken-style reading (午後九時一分), and a single 静 ("stillness") seal.
• Search (検索): live-filtered list of every installed app (work-profile apps included), with a scale-up launch animation and a long-press menu (app info / hide / uninstall). The theme toggle and the hidden-apps page live in this screen's header.
• The blockade (the whole point): hide an app and it's gone for 10 days, no take-backs. A confirmation spells out the commitment, a live countdown shows the time remaining, and while an app is blocked its notifications are suppressed system-wide too. The block is mirrored to shared storage, so uninstalling and reinstalling Tempo doesn't reset the timer.
• Notifications (通知): your real notifications, tap to open, swipe to dismiss, ordered by the system ranking, minus anything from a blocked app.
• Paper / Sumi themes: a one-tap toggle between washi cream and warm charcoal, persisted.
• A well-behaved launcher: HOME-press always returns to a clean home, a lifecycle-aware minute clock (no idle wakeups), default-home onboarding, edge-to-edge insets, predictive back, and accessible controls.

Usage

Tempo has three main screens, reached from the floating dock pill at the bottom of every screen. There are no settings, widgets, folders, or app drawer. That's the point.

• Set it as your home app. Press Home and pick Tempo, or long-press the dock pill (it glows vermillion until Tempo is your default) to jump to the system picker.
• Home (ホーム): a minute-aligned mincho clock with a spoken-style kanji reading, the date in vertical Reiwa-era kanji, the faint ensō, and the 静 seal. Back and the Home button always return here.
• Search (検索): type any part of an app's name or package to live-filter. Tap a row (or press Go to launch the top hit) to open it; long-press for app info / hide / uninstall. The header carries the hidden-apps button and the theme toggle.
• Block an app (the point). Hide an app from the long-press menu or the hidden-apps page (the eye-off button in the Search header). You'll confirm a 10-day commitment, granting shared-storage access so it survives a reinstall, and from then on the app is gone from Search and its notifications are suppressed. Tap it on the hidden-apps page to see the countdown; it can only be restored once the 10 days are up.
• Notifications (通知): grant notification access once (tap タップして許可); then tap a row to open it or swipe either way to dismiss it.
• Theme: tap the sun/moon icon in the Search header to toggle Paper ⇄ Sumi; your choice is saved.

→ Full walkthrough, gesture reference, and FAQ: docs/USER_GUIDE.md.

Tech stack

• Kotlin + Jetpack Compose (Material 3): the entire UI is Compose, drawn edge-to-edge.
• MVVM: a single LauncherViewModel over three repositories (apps, theme, notifications).
• Jetpack DataStore for settings; LauncherApps for a live app inventory; a NotificationListenerService for real notifications (and for suppressing blocked apps').
• The blockade ledger lives in app-private storage and a mirror file in shared storage (All-files access on Android 11+, legacy shared storage on Android 10), reconciled by latest-unlockAt-wins so a reinstall can't shorten a block, with a monotonic clock guard against rolling the system time back.
• No DI framework, no third-party UI libraries, just AndroidX.

Build & run

Requirements: JDK 17+ and the Android SDK (compileSdk 36, minSdk 29 — Android 10 and up).

git clone https://github.com/eddiegulay/tempo.git
cd tempo
./gradlew assembleDebug          # build the debug APK
./gradlew installDebug           # build + install on a connected device/emulator
./gradlew testDebugUnitTest      # run unit tests

Open the project in Android Studio (latest stable) and let it sync; local.properties is generated for you and is intentionally git-ignored.

Using it as your launcher

Once installed, press Home and pick Tempo, then grant notification access when the 通知 screen prompts you. App search needs no permission. See the Usage section above or the full User Guide for the complete walkthrough.

Project layout

app/src/main/java/io/eddiegulay/tempo/
├─ MainActivity.kt              # HOME activity; owns the ViewModel + lifecycle
├─ LauncherViewModel.kt         # single source of UI state
├─ data/                        # AppRepository, ThemeRepository (DataStore), BlockadeRepository, JapaneseDate
├─ notification/                # listener service (+ blocked-app suppression), store, repository
└─ ui/                          # Compose screens (Home/Search/Notifications/Filter), Dock, dialogs, theme

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please read CONTRIBUTING.md and the Code of Conduct. Bug reports and feature requests go through the issue templates.

Credits

• The app logo is the kanji 拍 ("beat", a single-character reading of tempo) set in Hiragino Mincho, in the same vermillion as the home seal. The master asset is art/logo/tempo_logo.svg; the Android adaptive icon (vector foreground
  • washi gradient background + themed monochrome layer) is generated from the same glyph outline.
• The cover art (art/cover/tempo_cover.svg) sets the same 拍 glyph inside a hand-drawn sumi-e ensō on the washi ground, with the 静 seal — the app's palette and type, composed around the negative space (ma) the launcher is built on.
• The visual direction was prototyped in Claude Design and implemented natively here.
• Display fonts: Shippori Mincho (clock, date, app names, 静 seal) and Zen Kaku Gothic New (notification copy, romaji), from Google Fonts under the SIL Open Font License, bundled under app/src/main/res/font so the design renders with its intended type rather than the platform Noto CJK fallback.

License

MIT © 2026 Eddie Gulay