Screen Time vs LifeShelf
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Screen Time
This app promotes mindful screen time by tracking usage and providing gentle nudges when sessions end, rather than outright blocking. It helps users understand their habits and make conscious choices about their digital engagement.
- Session-based time tracking
- Automatic start and stop timers
- Gentle nudges, not hard blocks
- Guilt-free timer snoozing
- Detailed usage statistics
- Customizable session lengths and daily goals
Read full descriptionHide full description
Blocking apps sound good in theory. In practice, you turn them off the moment they get in the way, and then feel worse about it. Break Check brings your screen time down without blocking a thing. You see how long you have been going, get a nudge when your time is up, and decide what happens next. No locked screens, no workarounds, no shame spiral. TRACK ANY HABIT, NOT JUST SCREEN TIME Doomscrolling, binge watching, gaming, the gym, shopping, reading, a bathroom break that got away from you. If you can start it and stop it, you can put it on a timer. SET A DAILY GOAL Give a habit a daily limit. Stay under it and the day counts as a win. Every day you meet your goal adds to your streak. NO HARD CUTOFFS When your time is up you get a gentle notification and the timer keeps counting, so you always know where you stand. Need longer? Add a few minutes with one tap. OR A REAL ALARM For a habit that needs a firmer stop, end the session with a full alarm instead. It gets through silent mode and Focus. NOTHING TO FORGET Timers can start and stop on their own: when you open an app, when you arrive somewhere, or at a time you pick each night. Your social apps can run their own timer. The gym one starts when you walk in. Setup takes about a minute. CONTROL IT FROM ANYWHERE A running timer sits in your Dynamic Island, Notification Center and Lock Screen, so you can check it or pause it without opening anything. Start one from Control Center, your Action Button, or a Home Screen widget. SEE WHERE YOUR TIME GOES Watch each day add up, spot your patterns, and see how close you are to your goal. Your time is kept as real sessions rather than one daily total, so you can find the hour you did not know you were spending. LIFE HAPPENS Waiting at the doctor? Long train ride? Some phone time should not count. Snooze every timer at once and take a guilt free break. No streak broken, no pressure. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account. Nothing to sign up for, ever. Break Check never asks for Screen Time access and never sees which apps you open, only the timers you start. Your habits sync through your own iCloud and are never collected or sold. YOUR FIRST TIMER IS ALWAYS FREE Not a trial. Track one habit for as long as you like, at no cost. Unlimited adds the rest: a timer for every habit, full alarm alerts, and the button that snoozes them all. Monthly, yearly, or a one-time purchase that is yours forever. Privacy Policy: https://codewerm.com/breakcheck/privacy-policy Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
LifeShelf
This app consolidates all your saved content, from links and photos to notes and files, into a single, searchable timeline. It intelligently finds items by meaning, even text within images, and offers features like checklists and reminders. Designed for privacy, your data stays on your device unless you opt for iCloud sync.
- Unified timeline for all saved content
- Intelligent search by meaning and keywords
- Extracts text from photos and screenshots
- Checklists with section titles
- Reminders for tasks
- Private by design, no account needed
- Optional iCloud sync
Read full descriptionHide full description
Everything you save ends up somewhere different. A link in Safari, a screenshot buried in Photos, an address in a text message, a voice memo you never played again. LifeShelf gives all of it one place. Notes, checklists, links, photos, files, voice notes and saved places land on a single timeline, newest first and grouped by day. There are no folders and no tags — nothing to file when you save, and nothing to remember about where you put it. FINDS IT BY MEANING Search reaches into your notes, file names, your own descriptions, and text read out of your photos. It matches by meaning as well as by keyword, using a model that runs on your device — so you can still find something when the words you remember are not the words you saved. BUILT FOR APPLE INTELLIGENCE On supported devices, Apple's on-device models write the short description that makes a note findable later. As they get better, so does your shelf. SAVE FROM ANYWHERE Share into LifeShelf from any app that can share — a link, a photo, a PDF, an address from Maps, a line of text someone sent you. It lands on the shelf without LifeShelf ever coming to the foreground. ALSO IN IT • Checklists with section titles, so a long list can be grouped • Do This Later — one reminder, on a day and time you choose • Last Time — know when you last did something, with its full history • Recent, what is coming up, and what you saved on this day in past years • Text in photos and screenshots read on device and made searchable • PDFs open inline; calendar invites can be added to your calendar • Light and dark, on iPhone, iPad and Mac PRIVATE BY DESIGN There is no account. No sign-up, no email, no password — download it and start saving. Your shelf is a database and files on your own device, not a copy of something on a server, and it works with no connection at all. Nothing is tracked and nothing is profiled. iCloud sync is optional and off until you switch it on. When you do, it syncs through your own iCloud account, not ours. You can export the whole shelf as a single file whenever you like. PRICING Your first 50 items are free, with every feature included — no trial period, no card required. After that a single one-time purchase removes the limit for good. It is not a subscription, it covers your iPhone, iPad and Mac together, and it works with Family Sharing.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: LifeShelf at 5.0 against Screen Time's 4.3. On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads 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. Screen Time sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and LifeShelf sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
LifeShelf holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 13 and 5 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
| Parameter | Screen Time | LifeShelf |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.3 (13 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 13 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 32 MB | 227 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | CodeWerm LLC | Fnu Shabana Sulthana Begum |
Customer experience
Screen Time
LifeShelf
In-app purchases
Screen Time
- Unlimited Monthly$1.991 Month
- Unlimited Yearly Early Adopter$9.991 Year
- Unlimited Yearly7 Days trial$11.901 Year
- Unlimited Lifetime$39.99
LifeShelf
- Unlimited LifeShelf$9.99
Questions
Is Screen Time free?
Is LifeShelf free?
Which has better reviews, Screen Time or LifeShelf?
Do Screen Time or LifeShelf have ads?
Other comparisons















