Launching today

CTRL

Launching today

Make distraction expensive

5 followers

Make distraction expensive

5 followers

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Screen time apps tell you to stop. CTRL makes you pay. Focus sessions earn credits, social apps cost credits to open. Run out and they stay locked. Built on iOS Screen Time APIs with AI-verified focus sessions.

Free

Launch tags:iOS•Health & Fitness•Productivity

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Maker

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Hey PH, Jibi here. I built CTRL because I kept losing 2 hours a day to apps I didn't even enjoy opening. Every screen time app I tried worked the same way: block the app, feel the friction, disable the blocker by day 3. So I flipped the model. CTRL treats attention like money. A 25-minute focus session earns you credits. Opening Instagram or TikTok costs credits. No credits, no scroll. You can always earn more, but you have to earn it first. A few things under the hood: The blocking runs on Apple's Screen Time framework, so it's real shields, not a polite reminder you can swipe away. Focus sessions are AI-verified. You tell CTRL what you're working on, show proof at the end, and it judges whether you actually did the work. No credits for staring at a blank doc. There are no streaks or guilt screens. Miss a day, nothing punishes you. The economy just resets. It's live on the App Store now. Would genuinely love to hear what pricing model feels fair for something like this, and whether the earn/spend ratio feels right. I've been tuning it on myself for weeks and I'm too close to it at this point.

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2d ago

Maker

Update from hour 6: most common question so far is "what stops me from faking a focus session?" Fair question. You set a goal when the session starts and submit proof when it ends the AI compares the two. A blank doc gets rejected, you earn nothing. A few people have told me the rejection stings more than any blocker notification they've ever gotten. That's kind of the point.

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16h ago

Forum Threads

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16h ago

Do paywalls work better than blockers for screen time?

I just launched an app built on a bet: people don't keep using screen time blockers because pure restriction feels like punishment, and users eventually side with the addiction against the app. My version makes social apps cost credits you earn through focus sessions instead of blocking them outright.

Early users seem to stick with it longer, but my sample is tiny. Curious what this community thinks has anyone here actually kept a blocker app installed for more than a month? What made you keep it or delete it?

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