Set a goal. Check in.
Get rewarded.
HabitApp is an iPhone habit tracker that makes your own screen time the reward. You set goals like going to the gym or sending the emails you keep not sending, and you choose what keeping them is worth: five minutes of social media, or two dollars toward something you are saving for. Then you check in through the day. The apps you nominated open while you have minutes to spend on them.
iPhone, iOS 18 or later. One problem, one currency, ten slots.
Hero clip — the ritual
Coin into the jar, sound on. Shot on a real phone, no screen recording.
Shield, with a balance
Live screenshot reading “You have 25 minutes.” with the Nope button visible.
Screen Time is a scale
It gives you a number on Sunday. It never asks what any of it was for, and it never asked before the hour started.
The evidenceKnowing the number is not an intervention
Researchers tested thirteen screen-time apps against real usage. Four moved it. The ones that only reported back did not.
The evidenceA pause is the part that works
Adding a short delay before an app opens cut openings by 57%. About a third of the time, people closed the app instead of waiting.
The evidenceGoals in. Rewards out.
The urge to pick up the phone is the strongest motivation most people have on any given afternoon. HabitApp does not try to argue you out of it. It puts that urge behind the thing you actually meant to do, and lets it pull.
Check-in card, mid-answer
The question, the two buttons, and the balance ticking up on the answer.
- 01Write down what you wantTen slots. Goals you want to do carry the doing: the gym, the study block, the emails that keep not getting sent. Goals you want to have carry a price: the headphones, the trip. You set them while you are calm, before you have any reason to argue with them.
- 02Pick what the reward isNominate the apps you lose hours to, and name the things you are saving toward. Those become the two currencies: minutes on the apps you chose, and dollars toward the thing you chose. Nothing else on the phone is touched.
- 03Answer through the dayThe app asks whether you kept the commitment, on the cadence you set, through the day rather than once on Sunday. You answer from the notification. A kept commitment mints minutes and moves the savings figure. A skip is not an answer and costs nothing.
- 04Spend what you earnedThe apps you nominated open while you have a balance. At zero the shield says: out of minutes. The button beside it says Nope, and pressing it closes the app and pays you for closing it.
Twenty minutes of video games for doing the dishes.
Every parental control app takes screen time away. HabitApp is the one that lets a child earn it. You post a task — the dishes, the homework, the thing you would otherwise ask for three times — with a reward attached. They accept it, do it, and submit it. Nothing pays until you have approved it.
Not a detox
You cannot fast a neurotransmitter. Dopamine runs movement and goal-seeking; there is nothing to flush. Quitting also lost to limiting in the trials that compared them.
Read the argumentNo streaks
Habit formation took a median of 66 days in the study everyone cites for 21, and the range ran from 18 days to 254. One missed day did not measurably change the curve.
Read the argumentIt cannot see your Screen Time
Apple hands your usage to a sandboxed extension that has no way to write a figure back to the app. HabitApp scores what you tell it. That is an architecture, not a promise.
Read the argumentNo hours-saved claim
Self-reported time savings are the least reliable number in this category, so there is no counter here that says three hours a day. The ceiling the evidence supports is a small reliable improvement and better sleep.
Read the argumentSolo
One person, their own goals and their own rewards.
- Yearly14-day free trial
- $99.99/year$8.33/mo
- Monthly7-day free trial
- $19.99/month
- Weekly
- $7.99/week
Family
A parent and their children. Adds the linked accounts, the task board and parent-managed app limits.
- Yearly14-day free trial
- $189.99/year$15.83/mo
- Monthly7-day free trial
- $27.99/month
Yearly bills once. Monthly and weekly bill you every cycle for as long as you keep the app. The plan only decides how often you get asked. Habit formation took a median of 66 days in the research, so three months is the honest recommendation — and the app is built to be finished with.
The jar
A balance mid-week.
Goals
Goals to do and goals to save for, in priority order.
The shield
Out of minutes.
The task board
A parent's offer, awaiting review.
Screenshots land in the next pass. Every card in the deck carries the citation it came from.
The research the app is built on, written out at length, with the sources named. Start anywhere.
What is HabitApp?
HabitApp is an iPhone app that turns your own screen time into the reward for keeping the commitments you set. You write down goals, nominate the apps you lose hours to, and answer check-ins through the day. Keeping a commitment mints minutes; the apps you nominated open while you have minutes to spend.
How does earning screen time work?
You set what each goal is worth when you write it down. Answering a check-in honestly mints that many minutes into a shared pool. The apps you nominated as rewards are locked through Apple Screen Time and open while the pool has a balance in it. At zero, they stop opening.
Which apps get locked?
Only the ones you nominate as rewards. Everything else on the phone is untouched. The lock runs on Apple Screen Time, so it holds across the whole system rather than only inside HabitApp.
Is HabitApp a habit tracker?
It tracks habits, but the tracking is not the point and it is not what makes it work. Researchers tested thirteen screen-time apps against real usage and only four moved the number; the ones that did nothing but report back to you did not. HabitApp attaches a consequence to the record, which is the part with evidence behind it.
Does it work as a digital detox?
No. In the trials that compared them, limiting use beat quitting outright. HabitApp is built for limiting.
Can HabitApp see my Screen Time figures?
No. Apple hands your usage to a sandboxed extension that has no way to write a figure back to the app, so HabitApp scores what you tell it rather than what your phone observed. That is an architecture, not a promise.
What does HabitApp cost?
Solo is $99.99 a year, $19.99 a month, or $7.99 a week. Family, which adds linked accounts, the task board and parent-managed app limits, is $189.99 a year or $27.99 a month. Yearly plans start with a 14-day free trial, monthly with 7 days.
What do I need to run it?
An iPhone running iOS 18 or later. The app is not on the App Store yet.
Your phone is a slot machine. This is the coin jar.
Minutes you earned are owned in a way stolen ones never were. HabitApp is built by one engineer, for iPhone, and it is nearly done.