MikolMelamdai,
“there are a few companies that are trying to create a dumb phone that has the necessary capabilities, there is light phone, punkt and maybe another one.”
The Mudita Pure, though both the Punkt and Mudita phones lack QWERTY keyboards and are even more expensive than the Light Phone II. The creator of the Punkt phone says, “if anyone wants to talk to me, they can give me a call”. I personally text way more than call, so I prefer having a touchscreen/QWERTY keyboard. The other challenge with these dumbphones is needing multiple devices to maintain the functionality a smartphone provides notably a GPS in the car, a flashlight, and a camera.
“By the way I’ve read online about apps that will make your iphone look like a dumb phone without icons, black and white etc.”
I run Android, which is more customizable than iOS. The primary interface you have with an Android device is the “launcher” (now called the Home app), which can be changed out. I currently use Olauncher, an open source launcher that has no icons. My “home” screen has the time and date, followed by my 8 most used apps (list of editable names, no icons). Swiping up shows a word list of all installed apps, with the ability to type text that matches an app’s name to launch it automatically. So, for example, I can swipe up and type “po”, and my podcast app launches immediately.