12 Steps Guide vs thumbfulness
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
12 Steps Guide
This app provides a comprehensive guide to the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, featuring audiobooks of key recovery tapes and literature. It includes prayers, readings, a sobriety calculator, and the complete Big Book text for a structured recovery journey.
- 12-step program guide
- Audiobooks of recovery tapes
- Complete Big Book text
- Sobriety calculator
- Included prayers and readings
- AA literature
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Work the Twelve Steps one day at a time, with a practical guide to every Step and Tradition, the Big Book and over 90 hours of recovery audio, in one calm, easy-to-read app. THE STEPS AND TRADITIONS - A guide to each of the Twelve Steps, with an introduction and a conclusion, written from personal experience in plain language - A guide to each of the Twelve Traditions - See how far you've read: a quiet percentage while you read, and a tick when you finish THE BIG BOOK - Every chapter, from the Doctor's Opinion to A Vision for You - Personal stories from the first and second editions - Printed page numbers, so you can follow along in a meeting - A clean list of chapters and stories with a tick for each one you've read, and "Continue reading" to pick up where you left off PRAYERS AND READINGS - The Serenity Prayer, the Third, Seventh and Eleventh Step prayers and more - How It Works, the Promises, the Preamble, Just for Today, On Awakening and other readings - Sobriety tips, including how to find a sponsor, and a link to the day's Daily Reflection RECOVERY AUDIO - 138 recordings in 11 albums: Big Book studies, speaker tapes and meditation bells, including Joe and Charlie, Chuck C., Sandy B., Clarence S. and Father Martin - Read along with the transcript of the Joe and Charlie and Big Book recordings - Choose your playback speed, from 0.75× to 2× - Keeps playing with the screen locked, with controls on the lock screen - Premium: download recordings and listen offline YOUR RECOVERY - Count your days from your recovery date. It stays on your phone. - Optional hourly reminders between the times you choose, each with a thought for the hour COMFORTABLE TO READ - Choose your text size; the app also follows your iPhone's text size - Light and dark themes, or follow your iPhone's setting - Designed for iPad too, with readings beside their list FREE, WITH A PREMIUM OPTION Reading and listening are free and supported by adverts. Premium removes the adverts and lets you download recordings for offline listening. Premium is an annual subscription with a 7-day free trial for new subscribers. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when the trial ends, and the subscription renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel it in your Apple Account's subscription settings. No account is needed. Your recovery date and your reading stay on your device. Terms of use: https://ibyteapps.com/apps/12-step-guide/terms Privacy policy: https://ibyteapps.com/apps/12-step-guide/privacy 12 Step Guide is not affiliated with or endorsed by Alcoholics Anonymous or A.A. World Services, Inc.
thumbfulness
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thumbfulness is a stillness timer. Rest a finger on a maximally darkened black screen and hold it for as long as your mind is quiet. The moment a thought arrives, lift. A huge pixel clock counts the hold; the lift drops it to zero and lands the time underneath as a lap. The practice is to make the laps longer — inside one sitting, and across the calendar. That is the whole app. There is nothing to configure before you start and nothing to read first. TWO MODES Two thumbs — the phone lands in your lap, held in landscape, both thumbs resting on the glass. One finger — the phone in portrait, on a table or a bed, any posture you like. They differ only in how many fingers the screen is waiting for. WHAT IT KEEPS Every sitting ends on a summary: the laps as a chart, the longest, the total held, and how much of the sitting was contact rather than thought. Give it a title and a note if you want one, or don't. History keeps every sitting. Progress draws the trend across a day, a week, a month, or all of it — a day you didn't sit is drawn as a gap rather than a zero, because a day off is not a failure. Your longest lap today and your longest lap ever sit under the clock while you hold. Passing either one is a single quiet haptic. Nothing else interrupts a sitting: no sound, no per-lap buzz, no notification. An app that congratulated you on a lift would be commenting on your thoughts, which is the one thing this one refuses to do. TWO THINGS IT DOES ON PURPOSE While a sitting runs, the screen goes to minimum brightness and will not auto-lock. Your brightness comes back when you lift, when you leave, and at the next launch if the app was killed before it could hand it back. While a sitting runs, the first swipe from a screen edge does not leave the app — a thumb resting near the bottom edge for ten minutes would otherwise send you home mid-sitting. A second, deliberate swipe leaves normally. FREE, AND STAYING FREE Everything above is free. There is no trial, no subscription, no locked mode, no history limit, and no ad. Nothing is ever unlocked by paying, because there is nothing to unlock. If you want to leave a tip, Settings has a jar. It buys nothing — no feature, no cosmetic, no removed limit — and it changes exactly one sentence of thanks. The app never asks; you have to go looking for it. PRIVACY No account, no sign-in, no analytics, no third-party SDKs, and nothing sent to us. Your sittings sync between your own devices through your private iCloud database, which we cannot read. iPhone, iOS 17 or later. Support: https://www.w3-digital.com/apps/thumbfulness/support/ Privacy: https://www.w3-digital.com/apps/thumbfulness/privacy/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is device support: 12 Steps Guide at 3 against thumbfulness's 1. 12 Steps Guide also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. 12 Steps Guide sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $19.99 per year and thumbfulness sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | 12 Steps Guide | thumbfulness |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (3.3K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 92.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3.3K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 35 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tushar Bhagat | SAFIYE REKLAM MEDYA DANISMANLIK GIDA TURIZM VE TICARET LIMITED SIRKETI |
Bugs and requests
12 Steps Guide
Reported bugs
2 issues- Daily reflections page not working
- App crashes on older devices
Requested features
3 requests- Add sobriety tracker
- Include 12 & 12 book content
- Improve bookmarking and page saving
thumbfulness
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
12 Steps Guide
- Annual Subscription7 Days trial$19.991 Year
- Donate$2.99
- Donate$4.99
- Donate$9.99
thumbfulness
- Small tip$0.99
- Medium tip$2.99
- Large tip$4.99
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- Generous tip$9.99
Questions
Is 12 Steps Guide free?
Is thumbfulness free?
Do 12 Steps Guide or thumbfulness have ads?
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