Ares vs Meal Shield
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ares
This app provides a customizable interval timer for various workouts like HIIT, Tabata, yoga, and stretching. It features real-time heart rate zone tracking with Apple Watch integration and allows users to create and save unlimited training sessions and workout sets. Voice cues guide users through workouts, ensuring focus remains on exercise.
- Customizable interval timer
- HIIT, Tabata, Yoga, Stretch modes
- Apple Watch control and heart rate zones
- Unlimited training session saving
- Workout set creation
- Voice and sound cues
- Training history tracking
Read full descriptionHide full description
Ares is an interval timer you don't have to keep looking at. A voice coach counts down the time, tells you which exercise is up and when to rest, so you can stay focused on your workout. Great for HIIT, Tabata, EMOM, AMRAP, circuit training, yoga and stretching—at home, at the gym or outdoors. No ads and no account needed. TRAIN WITHOUT WATCHING THE SCREEN • The voice counts down the final seconds and tells you what's next, so your phone can stay on the floor • Your music keeps playing, and if you want, Ares turns it down while the voice speaks • Work and rest have different colors, and the big numbers are easy to read from across the room • Keeps running with the screen locked: the timer shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, and you can pause without unlocking your phone START IN SECONDS • Pick a ready-made workout, like Tabata, HIIT 40/20 or stretching, and go. Choose from 16 workouts and 6 sets, each with instructions on how to do it • Set up your own workout once: rounds, work time and rest time. Then start it with a single tap • With workout sets, chain your warm-up, main workout and stretching into one session that runs by itself from start to finish • Got a workout from your coach or a friend? Add it from a link or QR code ALWAYS KNOW WHAT TO DO • 116 exercises with photos and how-to instructions, including dumbbell, kettlebell, resistance band and pull-up bar moves • Mid-workout, tap the exercise name to see how it's done • Add a note to your workout, like tips from your coach, and see it while you train • Working each side separately, like in yoga? Sides mode times the left and right side for you WITH OR WITHOUT APPLE WATCH • Control any workout from your wrist: see your heart rate, heart rate zones and calories live on your watch and iPhone • Pause and skip right from your watch, even with a double tap • No watch? AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 can show your heart rate too (iOS 26) • Workouts are saved to Apple Health SEE YOUR PROGRESS • After every workout, a chart shows your heart rate and heart rate zones during work and rest • Weekly summaries and a weekly streak help you make training a habit. One workout a week keeps your streak alive • Show off your result: a ready-made card with your own photo for a story or post MAKE IT YOURS • Light, dark or automatic appearance • Widgets for the Home Screen and Lock Screen • Works on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch ARES PLUS—EVEN MORE • Workouts that change as you go: set the shortest and longest time, and Ares lays out the intervals for you—getting longer, getting shorter, or with shorter and shorter rests. No need to set each one by hand • A different exercise in every interval, like squats, then push-ups, then a plank. The voice announces each one, so you don't have to remember the order • Train without your iPhone: save your workouts to Apple Watch and leave your phone at home or in your locker • Record exercise names or cues in your own voice and hear them during your workout • Extra themes, coach voices and sounds, including the Calm voice for yoga and stretching • Access for your whole family with Family Sharing Privacy Policy: https://ares.eris.one/privacy-policy/ License Agreement (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Meal Shield
Read full descriptionHide full description
Living with more than one food restriction turns every meal into a cross-referencing exercise. Gluten-free AND dairy-free AND nut-free is three labels to read, three menus to decode, three ingredient lists to second-guess. Meal Shield holds all of them at once. Set your restrictions once — 51 of them, from the top allergens to lactose, FODMAPs, histamine, halal, keto and AIP — and every screen in the app applies them automatically. WHAT IT CHECKS • Ingredient labels — point the camera at a pack and it reads the panel, then cross-checks every hidden name. Casein is dairy. Albumin is egg. Maltodextrin can be corn. • Your actual plate — photograph a meal and get each item identified, with calories, protein, carbs, fat and fibre, and an allergen verdict. • Barcodes — scan a product and see whether it is safe for your profile. • Restaurant menus — photograph the menu and see which dishes are safe. BUILT FOR FAMILIES Add a profile per person and switch to Family mode. The app shows only what is safe for everyone at the table — the intersection, not the average. HONEST ABOUT WHAT IT KNOWS Every recognised item shows where it came from — recognised, from a label, from your description, or added by you — and how confident it is. Tap "What the model saw" for the raw evidence. Adjust a portion by hand and it stops being presented as a model estimate. An app that guesses about allergens should say when it is guessing. FREE, WITH NO ACCOUNT There is no sign-up and no login. Your profiles, meals and photos stay on your device. Free forever: your restriction profile, the safe recipe library, the ingredient label scanner, the weekly planner and the daily nutrition dashboard. Free AI meal scans: 3. MEAL SHIELD PRO — $4.99/month or $44.99/year 120 AI meal scans a month, plus family profiles, the barcode scanner, the menu analyser, the smart shopping list, recipe substitutions and the nutrition summary. MEAL SHIELD PRO+ — $9.99/month or $89.99/year Everything in Pro, with 250 AI meal scans a month. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel in your App Store account settings. PRIVACY Meal photo analysis uses Google's Gemini AI, so the photo leaves your device for that one feature. The app asks before the first time and never sends it silently. Label reading, menu reading and description parsing all run entirely on your iPhone. IMPORTANT Meal Shield is an organisational tool, not a medical device. It cannot detect cross-contamination, manufacturing changes or errors on a label, and AI portion and ingredient estimates can be wrong. Never rely on it alone to decide whether a food is safe for a severe allergy. Always confirm with the manufacturer or restaurant. Privacy Policy: https://aieltokhy.com/mealshield/privacypolicy Terms of Use: https://aieltokhy.com/mealshield/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Meal Shield at every 4 days against Ares's every 2 weeks. Ares's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On price, ads, in-app purchases and iOS requirement 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. Ares sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Meal Shield sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Ares ships an update every 2 weeks, Meal Shield every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ares | Meal Shield |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (25 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 25 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 234 MB | 18 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Krzysztof Orlowski | Ahmad Eltokhy |
In-app purchases
Ares
- Ares Plus$1.991 Month
- Ares Plus$9.991 Year
- Ares Plus Forever$24.99
Meal Shield
- Pro: AI Meal Scanner Monthly$4.991 Month
- Pro+: Food Scanner Monthly$9.991 Month
- Pro: AI Meal Scanner Yearly$44.991 Year
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Pro+: Food Scanner Yearly$89.991 Year









