Gruffalo vs Brickify your smart device.
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Gruffalo
Engage young children with 6 character-themed games based on the beloved Gruffalo story. Designed for ages 3-6, these puzzles enhance cognitive skills, memory, and coordination through intuitive gameplay.
- 6 character-led games
- 18 levels
- Improves cognitive ability
- Enhances working memory
- Develops logical thinking
- Boosts hand-eye coordination
- Play with Gruffalo characters
Read full descriptionHide full description
Play with all the characters from 'The Gruffalo', the UK's favourite bedtime story! Perfect for 3 - 6 year olds. Featuring 6 character led games and 18 levels that combine fun game play with intuitive design. Carefully developed to improve cognitive ability, working memory, logical thinking and hand eye coordination. Children can play with the Gruffalo, Mouse, Fox, Snake, Owl and even race against them all! • Pit their memory skills against Mouse! • Test their aim against the Gruffalo! • Get colourful and paint with Fox! • Help Owl fly to his tree top house! • Slither through the maze with Snake! • Ready, steady, go! Clear the track and race the characters! Based on ‘The Gruffalo’, the classic children’s picture book written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated Axel Scheffler. These games are brought to you by Magic Light Pictures, producers of the Oscar nominated animations 'The Gruffalo' and 'Room on the Broom' as well as the 'The Gruffalo's Child' and 'Stick Man'. You can play Gruffalo: Puzzles on iPhone (4 and above), iPod Touch (4 and above), iPad (2 and above) and iPad mini. Previous versions of these devices will not be fully supported. If you experience any technical difficulties please email office@magiclightpictures.com
Brickify your smart device.
Read full descriptionHide full description
Brickify turns a smartphone into a brick phone on a schedule you set. Block apps by time of day: a brickphone for the school day, maps for the walk home, more open at weekends. Simple parental control without monitoring, for a child's first phone or your own digital detox. No need to buy a dumbphone. WHY I BUILT IT My sons' school went smartphone-free. Brilliant in principle, but I'd already promised them a phone for the walk to school and a few agreed apps at weekends. There was an old phone in a drawer, too good to throw away and too distracting to hand over as it was. Brickify turned it into a brickphone: calls, texts and whatever else we agreed, then a more open profile on a schedule we're all happy with. The school's happy. They're happy. I didn't have to buy anything new. SET IT ONCE. THEN STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. The best thing Brickify does that your phone's built-in Screen Time won't: it runs on its own schedule, moving between the profiles you've set up. Set the days, hours and apps once (ideally when your resolve is strongest, not at 11pm when you're too tired to enforce anything) and Brickify takes it from there. No daily nagging, no switching it by hand, no relying on willpower you won't have tomorrow. REAL RESTRICTIONS, NOT A SUGGESTION Brickify uses Apple's Family Controls (the system behind Screen Time) to actually enforce whichever profile is active. It isn't an honesty-system timer. Moving to a more open profile ahead of schedule needs your PIN, plus an optional second factor (an authenticator app or an email code), so a determined kid, or a determined 11pm version of you, can't override it alone. REUSE WHAT YOU'VE ALREADY GOT A dedicated dumbphone costs around £10–£15 and does one job. Brickify costs a one-off $4.99 / £4.99 and turns a smartphone you already own into the same thing, with the bonus of moving to a more open profile on your schedule. As they grow up, you can release more apps, one at a time. WHAT'S INSIDE • Profiles — name a set of blocked apps once, reuse it whenever • Automatic scheduling — build profiles at different restriction levels and schedule them in • PIN + optional second factor — nobody can override the schedule alone • Recovery codes — for when you genuinely lock yourself out • Block the App Store in a profile — so nothing new gets installed without you • Emergency calling always works, whatever profile is active • One-time $4.99 / £4.99 — no subscription, no renewal, ever Brickify isn't a monitoring app. It doesn't read messages, browsing history or location. It does one thing: blocks apps between the profiles you define, on a schedule you control. Built by Anne Mundy.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Brickify your smart device. at Free against Gruffalo's $2.99. Gruffalo's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and chart position (#168 vs unranked). On update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Brickify your smart device. is free to download; Gruffalo costs $2.99 up front. Brickify your smart device. sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Gruffalo asks for nothing beyond the download.
Gruffalo ships an update every 5 weeks, Brickify your smart device. monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Gruffalo | Brickify your smart device. |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.4 (8 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 75.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 8 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Best chart rank | #168 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 7.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 174 MB | 47 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Magic Light Pictures Ltd | Anne Mundy |
In-app purchases
Gruffalo
No in-app purchases
Brickify your smart device.
- Brickify lifetime$4.99





