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Ratio 4 — Welcome to your new home screen
Ratio is an Android home screen designed to turn mindless distraction into mindful productivity.
3 screens with everything you need on unlock. No more endless switching between apps, use social media less and supercharge your productivity.
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Gab Bujold 💀
This is 100% what I've been looking for.
I'm struggling between the fact that I want to use my phone as an agenda and to manage personal stuff, but I want to increase my productivity and stay focused.
Ratio is helping me get the best of both worlds with great design and a customizable interface. And since it's not a launcher, it doesn't ask for a lot of memory.
Thank you for building that! :)
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@bujold19 Hey Gabriel, I think we've all been there MANY times. You *want* to remain productive, but you have all these apps trying their best to pull you in and engage with them (especially if their business depends on ad revenue), using everything from notifications, bright colors, dark patterns (look at Instagram replacing the Activity button with the Shop button).
We believe people shouldn't have to jump through a million hoops just to be able to use their time how they truly want to (and not how their impuses make them), and this is why we've created Ratio. The great design is the cherry on top 😊
Thank you for your support!
@bujold19 Technically it is a launcher :) Really glad to hear that you‘re enjoying Ratio!
So simple yet so complete, useful, and amazing! It's like something made specifically for me, being someone so easily distracted, this is just IT. The minimalistic design is just fantastic! Great job!
@juanpablosarmi thanks for sharing your thoughts with us! Indeed, sometimes we can feel that apps are better because they offer more options, when in fact those extra options end up costing your time and attention (which we should all value much more). We made some conscious choices design wise that enable you to more easily make the "right" choices, the ones you really want to make. This is why we have grayscale icons by default, or why we use drawers, so you dont feel tempted to click an app just because its there on the homescreen.
@juanpablosarmi it always makes us proud to hear that our product affects user behaviors in a positive way!
@dan_giaime hey thanks a lot Dan, upvoted your post as well, best of luck on your project, it's great to see such initiatives in covid times :)
Hey Product Hunters, we are really excited to launch and share Ratio with you!
We have been working hard the past couple of months with our outstanding community and beta testers (you guys are amazing) to finally deliver it to you as well!
Ratio is a minimal and distraction free Android launcher that is aiming to boost your productivity and clear up cluttered mobile screens. The same screen that is seeking your attention and time 5 hours a day. Imagine if Superhuman and WeChat had a baby :)
My cofounder @mladen_hoyss1 and I started tinkering with Android home screens with one mission, to help people use their phone less without compromises. We see smartphone hazing / excessive use of social media as one of the most severe problems in our social lives. Consumer apps incentivised by eyeball economics have mastered the art of indulging us on their screens beyond whats useful or healthy. We find measures to block, ration or shame usage as extreme and unfruitful. We believe there could be an alternative; social media and smartphones can offer amazing connectivity and social life if used and accessed well. We at Blloc believe in merging mindful UX and minimal UI design into our product so you can get to be the best version of yourself. And this is why we created Ratio.
As long-standing iOS users we saw an opportunity in the flexibility of Android to build the perfect mobile experience: a clean UI, no distraction, no time wasted and getting stuff done fast.
Ratio consists of 3 essential screens designed to give you what you need at a glance: Information, Apps and Messaging.
- Access core functionalities on unlock - The Root
🌥 Weather 📝 Notes 🗓 Calendar 📰 News 📹 Youtube 🎧 Spotify and more...
- Your app drawers - The Tiles
A new and calmer way to organise your apps and find them easier. Every app shows usage time under the title to give you quick awareness of time spent and help you build positive habits.
- A messaging hub - The Tree
65% of phone usage is messaging. A lot of Social networks utilise messages to get you back on their endless feeds. We extract and aggregate messages from all platforms into one screen, giving you control and connectivity without dependancy.
The tree will save you the tedious time you spend switching between apps to check and reply to messages.
We fully integrated with our API independent solution sending and receiving text and media on WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram DM and Facebook Messenger. We have SMS (launching soon), Twitter, discord and Slack in the pipeline.
@mladen_hoyss1 @adhambad @saalex Thanks Samuel, let us know how it goes, and some onboarding tips : http://howto.blloc.com/
@mladen_hoyss1 @adhambad Reads like a dream, but it doesn't seem to be compatible with my mobile -- a Huawei P20 Lite. Any idea why?
@mladen_hoyss1 @adhambad @hasan_diwan Hi Hasan we have a lot P20 users, does it have PlayServices ? shoot an email to bugs@blloc.com preferrebly with screenshots and we'll look into it.
I've started using Blloc Ratio in May & downloaded the APK & right away it was visible that the product shows immense promise.
I've played with it for a bit & sadly deleted it after a couple of weeks but just downloaded it again today and it's the bomb! The progress is incredible, Root & Tree are much improved since my last visit, the auto-categorizing is amazing & don't get me started on all the customization options.
I would like to see the BllocDesk app return in the future & maybe add support for multiple search engines (I'm a DDG user in general) but for now all good - continue with the great work guys! 💪
@blendorwhat wow that is such a heartwarming thing to read, thanks a lot on behalf of the entire team 🙏
For now we are 100% focused on Ratio itself, making the Root richer, the Tiles more productive friendly and the Tree as functional as possible, on top of improving the overall app's performance.
If you want to catch up with everything that changes in each update, everything is listed in Ratio Settings if you press the version number, as well as here: www.blloc.com/updates
@blendorwhat we actually really believe in BllocDesk and closing the full circle on a productive experience on the laptop as well. We have all the mechanics in place to re-launch pretty quickly, but as we went for Electron on building it, it was a but of a struggle to have it work stable and consistent that we decided to focus our resources on Ratio 4. This will change soon and integrating the Tree upwards to a desktop is super trivial compared to the other way around ;)
Will Tree offer any other messaging platforms other than what's currently available? I don't use any of the platforms full-time that are currently offered, I mainly use Google's Messages and would like that be an option there instead of just Internet based options like WhatsApp and Telegram.
Hi @arthurgd3 ! Thanks for letting us know. We have big plans for the tree in the coming months. There are more messaging platforms in the pipeline like sms/mms, slack, twitter and discord.
@arthurgd3 hey Arthur! Yeah, right now SMS support is in the works and will be coming soon. We plan to add more apps in the future, such as Twitter DMs
@internet_johnny Great! I do love the aesthetic and overall it's fast and easy to use but the biggest hurdle for me (the SMS option is Tree is a small issue) is how much of a departure it is from the traditional launcher layout like Nova that I've been using since it's inception. I'm not typically a minimalist style user, I work in IT and I'm on my phone pretty much all day in some capacity so being able to quickly access what I need is a matter of time savings and while I appreciate the auto categorization feature, for users like myself it's a bit less practical, as much as I understand the value of it for other types of users but I support what you guys are doing and am willing to keep trying to make it work for me.
Hi, I think I've got lost since I installed and changed to Ratio. Would you tell me how to go back to the old screen I'd used before? I tried to find a clue in Settings but it's hard to find.
@new_user_4d93c34de7 hey Cheol, can you tell us what you mean by old screen? We've recently added more themes to Ratio if that's what you are referring to, you can change between them by holding the quickaction button (bottom right) and selecting between focus/sun/light/dark
@new_user_4d93c34de7 @internet_johnny Thank you for the quick reply and sorry for the unclear request. I meant that I wanted to go back to the previous theme that I was using before I changed to Radio. But I figured it out, so I have no problem at all now. I think if Radio can offer a feature that we may change each menu to our own language, that would be much better. Thank you.
@new_user_4d93c34de7 @internet_johnny multi language support is something we've been hearing a lot from our users, so we'll add it soon enough. What language do you want to have in Ratio?
@new_user_4d93c34de7 @internet_johnny Hi Cheol totally fair we underestimated localisation's importance and learned relatively quick how important that is on a home screen, we're working on it in an upcoming update.
@internet_johnny I'm Korean. So if I can change all the language into it, I'd be happier than ever. Thank you!
Absolutely awesome - *awesome* - to see this. As an avid watcher of the launcher space (with my current fave being Posidon [spelled/stylized as such] for a number of reasons) - a space heavily congested with spamware, fluff, and lookalikes - Ratio is something to get hype about...
Between an aesthetic appeal that will tickle even the most ardent of iFans in tandem with features/an ethos that champions productivity, usability, and - honestly - *sensibility* - in equal measure, Ratio’s the 2020 glow-up that your Android device (and, maybe - just maybe! - your very relationship with your tech/screen time...) needs.
(And, no - disclaimer unnecessary, haha - despite my glowing praise, here, I’m not employed by or affiliated with the #bllocgang ... but, I mean... hit me up, guys. ;) )
@seymourgroup hahaha that disclaimer is totally necessary :D. 🥰 Blushing, thanks a lot for the love Graham 💕
Great UI and almost everything is great. Especially the marker and gestures! Loving it. Only thing I miss so much or I think I miss is PWA home shortcuts. Am I doing something wrong??
This is really cool, played around with it for about an hour but unfortunately has some resizing issues on the front screen on the Z Fold 2. I know it's a niche phone but figured you'd want to know.
I had a couple of launchers before, but Ratio is so good, it almost makes me cry. It's THAT good! I really love what you all are doing, and have been sharing it with friends and family. Don't think I will be using anything else any time soon. Keep it up!
12/21/20 Quick review!
After a couple of days use I can say that this is easily one of the neatest home screen apps out there. It's visually appealing with color customization available for the extra color coding fellows.
Overall onboarding process was smooth and easy to understand, just had to do it a couple of times if I forgot how to execute a shortcut/function.
There are a couple of things that do come to mind while using my decked out Ratio 4 phone daily such as:
1. Ending running apps in the background. This may only apply for a "select" few folks out there but I religiously kill my apps so they don't run in the bg. Any support for this, am I missing something, or it will distract from my focus? :P
2. Root and Messages app support. I haven't been able to fully submerge my self into the Ratio 4 habitat as I use YT Music instead of spotify. On the Root screen, limited app/search support offer a bump in the road, not much more than that. Finally to wrap up, the app support of the messages doesn't seem to support from my regular messages app, only the like of tele, FB, Insta. Again only a bump in the road and if there is any support for these I'd love to hear it!
Great work, keep it up. 🤘
I've been a huge fan of Blloc from the beginning when they customised their own mobile phone. Luckily I seem to be the first one who got the Blloc Z18. Amazing experience since then. And moving this great UI as a launcher/homescreen/communication tool on so many Android phones was a really clever step. Ratio is my everyday tool that just keeps getting better with every update. Don't want to miss it any longer... Definitely worth trying! 🤩
@derkolarsky The first one to get a Z18? That will be quite the story in the future, hold on to that Z18 😉 Love reading these personal stories, is there any feature you're really excited about coming to Ratio (or maybe one that was added recently)?
@derkolarsky Ralf! We remember you well! So good to hear from you and still having you with us on board! Everyone at Blloc sending their greetings! Thanks for the support
@derkolarsky wow feel so humbled to know we have you as a customer since 2018 🔥
@internet_johnny This device will not leave my home until it falls apart with no further help of mine… 😂🤣
For me Ratio 4 feels cleaner again – looks like the flat UI approach was improved and I really like it. I read a lot about users asking for customized accent color(s). Well this could be interesting. On one side a free RGB mode to set users preferred color or maybe just a few presets to select from. I guess there are a lot possibilities to improve the overall experience but one shouldn't expect to have THE final stage at any point. I enjoy this „work-in-progress“ product and the really fast response of the devs to bugs or feature requests. Pricing model will also be interesting in the future except they think about moving this way 😉 but I think it's fair because there's a lot of work and – I guess – pretty tough tweaking to do.
No matter which way this launcher will take – I've been there from day 1 (user side) and will stay… Period. 😊
@hosien_sy Thanks, the team really appreciate your support as well :)
@olivier_f can you consider working on " compacticons as supported iconpack plz ✌️ keep up the good work
@1he_illustrator hey it looks great & minimal, it would probably fit very well in Ratio so we will consider adding it 👍 thanks for the support!
@olivier_f honestly i thought you will aquire this iconpack instead of lines when i first discovered blloc. You welcome
@olivier_f hello oliver ✌️ good? I just wanna aak about the compacticons iconpack we talked about before. We would like to see it in ratio so soon
I've been using Ratio for a few months and I've been using Ratio 4 for about a week. It's a great launcher and I recommend it. I'm excited to see what they add in the future.
@danteventu Hi Dante, thanks for the support! I hope you're stay satisfied with Ratio in the future! Stay tuned ;)
Great UI and almost everything is great. Especially the marker! Loving it. Only thing I miss so much or I think I miss is PWA home shortcuts. Am I doing something wrong??
Great UI and almost everything is great. Especially the marker! Loving it. Only thing I miss so much or I think I miss is PWA home shortcuts. Am I doing something wrong??
Ratio is hands down the best launcher I have used. The update just makes everything cooler.
Keep up the good work you're doing Blloc Team. Respect!!!
Hey Team Ratio,
I love the product but just one question I was wondering if there is any way to shut the vibrate while doing actions?
Also, there were some glitches but I have taken screenshots and would love to share them.
I had to make a bunch of folders on home screen to start doing what you guys do automatically and elegantly. Will try it out and see if it is aligned with how I use my phone.
@desire_fulfillment Really interested in hearing your thoughts on our app auto-categorizer! Let us know if everything works ok for you
@internet_johnny Hey, getting back about my experience so far. I'll keep it brief. Based on my previous usage of homescreen folders, here is my feedback:
1. Options to add an app to multiple drawers
2. Option to create multiple pages for collection of drawers. I'd enjoy having an option of moving around on my home screen & have multiple home pages which i can scroll up to maybe (a swipe up on home screen?) just to accommodate brewing ocd :P