ByTime vs Capsla

Earn your screen time. Most screen-time apps work by taking things away. ByTime works by giving them back — but only when you've earned them. Focus for a few minutes, and minutes drop into your wallet. When you want to use Instagram, TikTok, or any app you've blocked, you spend from what you earned. No daily quotas. No willpower contests. No guilt afterwards. It's the simplest behaviour change there is: you can have it, you just have to earn it first. HOW IT WORKS 1. Pick the apps and websites you want to keep at arm's length. 2. Run a focus session. Three minutes, thirty minutes — your call. 3. Spend what you've earned. Tap the shield over a blocked app, choose how many minutes to spend, and it opens. When the minutes run out, the shield comes back. A WALLET, NOT A WARDEN Your earned minutes sit in a balance you can see at a glance. Carry minutes forward. Spend them on whatever you want, in whatever order you want. The app doesn't decide what's important — you do. A FOCUS SESSION YOU CAN LIVE WITH The session screen is dominated by a slow, ambient surface that breathes for as long as you focus — Aurora, Sunset, Observatory, and a handful of other shader-rendered backgrounds you can pick from. The timer is there when you need it, but it isn't the loudest thing on the screen. And the reward you're earning sits next to the time you have left, so the session is about what you're gaining, not just what you're spending. BUILT ON THE 8-8-8 BALANCE Eight hours of focus. Eight hours of reward. Eight hours of sleep. ByTime is built around the idea that a day works best when those three are in rough balance — and your screen time belongs in the reward eight, paid for by the focus eight. You set the daily targets; the wallet does the accounting. A REWARD, NOT A PUNISHMENT The earn-then-spend loop works the way brains actually respond to incentives: positive reinforcement instead of punishment, delayed gratification instead of impulse. You're not being scolded for picking up your phone — you're being paid for putting it down. PRIVACY THE WAY APPLE INTENDED ByTime is built on Apple's Screen Time APIs (FamilyControls, ManagedSettings, DeviceActivity). Your usage data never leaves your device. We don't collect it, we don't see it, and we don't sell it. CALM, PREMIUM, INTENTIONAL Dark-first interface, tactile glass surfaces, fluid motion. ByTime is designed to feel like a well-made instrument — a tool you reach for, not one that scolds you. WHO IT'S FOR — Students who lose hours to TikTok between every study block and want their phone back on their own terms. — Anyone who's tried five blockers and felt punished by all of them. — Adults who want to spend less time scrolling and more time on what they actually planned to do. WHAT IT'S NOT — Not a parental control app. ByTime is built for self-management; you set your own rules. — Not a streak machine. There are no fires to lose, no badges to chase, no scoreboards. — Not a shame engine. The app never tells you you've used your phone too much. It just shows you what you've earned. Earn it. Spend it. Stop fighting your phone.

With auto-start on, a focus session runs on its own. Capsla blocks the apps you choose, moves from focus to break and back without a tap, and keeps a calm, living scene on screen. In Capsla+, that can be the real Earth from NASA maps. No account, no ads, and Capsla collects nothing. Block distracting apps while you focus: Capsla asks for Screen Time access and lifts the block the moment the phase ends. It's a Pomodoro timer for studying, deep work and anything that needs your full attention. Set your focus length, short and long breaks, and the number of cycles. With auto-start, focus, break and the next focus follow each other until the long break. Focus tagged Meditation, Walk or Sport can be saved to Health, and finished sessions to a calendar of your choice. Capsla only writes there and never reads. The timer is wherever you look: in a Live Activity and the Dynamic Island, on the Lock Screen, on Apple Watch, in widgets, in Control Center and on the Action button. Ask Siri to pause or start, and the answer comes with a card and buttons for the next step. Capsla has its own Apple Watch app: start and pause from your wrist even when your iPhone isn't nearby, feel a tap when a phase ends, and keep the timer on your watch face. Notifications do real work. A quiet heads-up shortly before focus ends, a signal when a phase is over, buttons to start the break or the next focus right from the banner, and an optional reminder to come back after a break. Notifications are Time Sensitive, so they come through Do Not Disturb. Statistics show where your attention went: net focus time by week, month and all time, a chart by day, the hours you focus best, days in a row and time by tag. History starts the day you install Capsla, and the app never fills in numbers it did not record. Export all of it as a CSV file whenever you like. FEATURES • Custom focus and break lengths from 1 to 999 minutes, 1 to 10 cycles • Auto-start: a whole session runs without a tap • Save focus to Health; log sessions to Calendar or schedule them there • Block distracting apps during focus • Add one or five minutes to a running focus • Live Activity, Dynamic Island and a Lock Screen widget with a start button • An Apple Watch app with complications, a Smart Stack card and a Control Center button • Timer and statistics widgets, a Control Center control, the Action button • Siri and Shortcuts: start, pause, resume, skip a break, ask how long you focused today • Tags with icons and colors; a Focus filter can pick the tag for you • Apple Intelligence on device, where available: tag suggestions, similar notes grouped in Statistics, a weekly review • “Working on”: a short note for your focus, shown on the timer, the Lock Screen and Apple Watch, in Statistics and in Calendar • 16 sounds and three vibration patterns, chosen separately for each phase • Six calm free backgrounds, including Night and Sky, which follows the time of day • Dark Mode, VoiceOver, larger text and increased contrast • 17 languages CAPSLA+ A one-time purchase with no subscription, shared with your family: fourteen more backgrounds, including Solar System with the real Earth and Snowfall with Frost, which slowly ices over the timer, more palettes and an accent color, typefaces for the timer, celebration effects and background noise while you focus. BUILT HONESTLY No ads. The core of Capsla, including the timer, the Apple Watch app, app blocking, statistics, tags, widgets and Siri, is free and stays free. Capsla+ adds looks and sound only: nothing that was free moved behind it, and there are no pop-ups asking you to buy. There is no Capsla account. Tags and focus history sync only through your own iCloud; settings stay on your iPhone. Capsla collects nothing: no analytics, no crash reporting of its own, no advertising identifiers. If something breaks, you can attach a crash report to an email yourself.