Which phones work with Brickify?

Brickify's whole point is turning a phone you already own into a brickphone, so this matters more than it would for most apps. Here's exactly what's required, and why.

Why iOS 16, specifically?

App blocking on iPhone runs entirely on Apple's own Family Controls framework — the same system behind Screen Time. That framework was introduced in iOS 15, but its first release was widely reported to be unreliable: restrictions could silently fail to apply, and the background checks the OS is supposed to run on a schedule didn't always fire. Apple fixed the bulk of these issues in iOS 16.

Brickify's whole design is meant to be hands-off — set it up once, trust it to run itself. Supporting iOS 15 would mean building on a foundation known to quietly drop the exact restrictions you're relying on, which defeats the point. So we only support iOS 16 and later, on purpose, rather than chasing the widest possible device list.

iPhone compatibility

Any iPhone that can run iOS 16 or later will work. That's iPhone 8 / iPhone X and everything released after:

Android compatibility

App blocking on Android uses the Accessibility Service and Device Administrator APIs, which have been stable for a long time — Android 8.0 (Oreo, 2017) or later is all that's required. Because Android phones come from many manufacturers, we can't list every model, but as a rule of thumb: any Android phone from roughly 2018 onward will work.

Both platforms

• A physical device is required — app blocking does not work in a simulator or emulator.
• The device needs to be able to install and run apps at all, obviously — a phone too old to take a modern app install won't work regardless of iOS/Android version.