Comparison

Screen Time Control vs Sift for Reminders

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Screen Time Control

This app helps you block distracting applications until you complete your tasks, transforming your phone into a productivity tool. It allows you to track your progress, build better habits, and unlock apps as rewards for finishing your to-do list.

Highlights
  • Block distracting apps until tasks are completed
  • Track productivity and streaks
  • Flexible task management
  • Unlock apps as rewards
  • Build better habits
Features
Read full description

Make distracting apps wait until your priorities are done. DoUnlock helps you reduce screen time and follow through on tasks by connecting app access to real progress. Choose the apps that pull your attention away, create the tasks or routines you want to finish, and unlock access after you complete them. FOCUS WITH A CLEAR REASON • Block distracting apps during study, work, or personal time • Create tasks and repeatable routines • Schedule focused work in advance • Track focused time and completed activity • Turn app access into a motivating reward USE DOUNLOCK FOR • Studying and exam preparation • Deep work and productive mornings • Exercise, reading, chores, and daily habits • Reducing social media and compulsive scrolling • Building healthier digital routines HOW IT WORKS 1. Choose the apps you want to block 2. Add a task, routine, or focus session 3. Complete your goal to unlock access DoUnlock gives your phone a simple boundary so your attention can stay with what matters. Optional subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel subscriptions in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b2FQZ_HK2I_6ZBJhiaJw_Vii5aKW9D4dYjGfP9C8efU/edit?usp=sharing

About

Sift for Reminders

Features
Read full description

Sift is a fast triage layer on top of Apple Reminders. It uses the lists you already have, and there is nothing to migrate. Your tasks stay where they are. Sift reads and writes them through EventKit, Apple's own framework, so they remain ordinary reminders that Reminders, Siri and every other app you use can still see. Delete Sift tomorrow and Reminders keeps every task exactly as Sift last left it. THE EISENHOWER LENS Urgent against important, laid over the lists you already keep. Four quadrants, derived from a task's due date and its priority, and adjustable by hand whenever the derivation is wrong about your day. Pick the vocabulary that fits: plain verbs, the classic Eisenhower labels, or one word each. TRIAGE, NOT ANOTHER INBOX One card at a time, on the keyboard or under your thumb, until the pile is gone. Place it, snooze it, let it go. A task you are not going to do this week can be put out of sight without being deleted and without being a lie. THE DAILY REVIEW One short ritual that keeps the matrix honest, because a matrix nobody revisits is a drawing. It walks what is overdue, what has gone stale and what you are waiting on, and it ends by asking the only question that matters: what will you actually do today? RIGHT IN THE MENU BAR What is burning, one click from anywhere on the Mac, plus quick add without leaving what you are doing. ON THE PHONE The same matrix, the same quadrants, the same day. Everything a task can be doing has somewhere to be: snoozed until Tuesday, waiting on someone else, ignored until you are ready, or parked in someday. Every verb is one long press away. IT NEVER TOUCHES WHAT IT CANNOT SEE Tags, subtasks, attachments and flags are invisible to EventKit, so Sift neither shows them nor rewrites them. It never writes its own metadata into the notes field of your tasks. NO SERVER, NO ACCOUNT There is nothing to sign in to. Sift keeps a small lens beside your reminders (which quadrant a task sits in, whether it has been triaged, what is snoozed and until when, what you focused on, what you reviewed and when, the log of completed repeating occurrences, and your settings) and that lens lives in your own iCloud private database, which is how the Mac and the phone stay in step. Nobody else can read it, including us. There is no telemetry, no analytics and no advertising identifier. Free. No subscription.

Screenshots

Screen Time Control4 screens
Sift for Reminders4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Sift for Reminders at none against Screen Time Control's 4. Sift for Reminders also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs monthly). On price, ads, device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Screen Time Control sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per 7 days. Sift for Reminders asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Screen Time Control ships an update monthly, Sift for Reminders every 3 days. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Screen Time Control versus Sift for Reminders: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterScreen Time ControlSift for Reminders
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.0 (4 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings4 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, Mac
Requires iOS18.518.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size24 MB20 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperFenuku KekeliDavid Barta

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Screen Time Control

Subscriptions3
  • All Access for a week$5.997 Days
  • All Access for a month3 Days trial$7.991 Month
  • All Access for a year$39.991 Year
One-time1
  • All Access to Lifetime$99.99
None

Sift for Reminders

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Screen Time Control free?
Screen Time Control is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Sift for Reminders free?
Sift for Reminders is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Screen Time Control or Sift for Reminders have ads?
Neither Screen Time Control nor Sift for Reminders shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Screen Time Control or Sift for Reminders?
Screen Time Control ships an update monthly, and Sift for Reminders every 3 days. Most recently, Screen Time Control was updated on October 25, 2026 and Sift for Reminders on October 25, 2026.

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