Designing friction instead of blocking: what I learned building a screen-time app
App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6769946195 The problem with every blocker I tried I've tried the usual stuff on my own phone: hard limits, one-tap locks, deleting apps. They all fail the same way. The block is absolute, so the fix is absolute too — you flip the switch off, and you're back to zero. Every attempt resets to the same starting line. My wife had the same pattern, worse: down…
Designing friction instead of blocking: what I learned building a screen-time app
Building a screen-time app led to valuable insights. The author tried various blockers but found they all failed in the same way - blocking access completely reset the user to zero. This led to the realization that instead of blocking, keeping access while adding small pauses was a better approach. The author set three rules for themselves: never make it impossible, make the exit visible, and never go around the system.
They chose to use the platform's own Screen Time stack for iOS, which includes APIs such as Family Controls authorization, DeviceActivity for monitoring, and ManagedSettings for shields.
On iOS, the app introduced per-app allowance instead of one global limit. The single 60-minute budget for the whole phone gets spent in ten minutes, spread across different apps. The app also includes a pause screen, not a wall, and when the allowance runs out, the user can either wait a bit or use a small number of pre-chosen unlocks.
The unlocks are logged, not blocked, and the aim is to see the patterns rather than prevent access at all costs. There is also a feature called Friend Freeze, which allows a trusted person to freeze apps for a set window.
The app was designed to provide accountability without surveillance. Before using the app, the author's phone was in hand until 2 am, and screen time after midnight was typically around 50 minutes. After six weeks of using the app, screen time was down to about 20 minutes, and the experience was no longer a fight. The number of unlocks per night went down from 5-6 to 0-1.
The app is available for free on iOS 17+ and can be downloaded from the App Store. The author is open to sharing their experience and knowledge on the Screen Time APIs with others who are building similar apps.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.