macalo vs PiyoHug
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
macalo
Log your meals with AI-powered calorie and macro estimation. Earn energy from your logged calories to craft and collect virtual sweets. Visualize your daily nutrition and track progress with widgets.
- AI-powered calorie and macro estimation from meal photos
- Calorie energy for virtual sweet crafting
- Sweets collection with limited editions
- Daily nutrition visualization on calendar
- Home screen widget for progress tracking
- Barcode scanning for food logging
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Log your meals and their calories become energy to craft sweets. macalo is a calorie tracking app that turns "eating" into "creating." ◆ Just snap a photo — AI estimates your calories Simply take a photo of your meal and AI automatically estimates calories and macros (protein, fat, carbs). Text input and barcode scanning are also supported. ◆ Your calories power the sweet-making process The calories you log become energy that drives the sweet-crafting process. With each step completed, your sweet gets closer to being finished. ◆ Sweets Collection Completed sweets are added to your collection. Collect all kinds of sweets! Limited-edition sweets may appear from time to time. ◆ Visualize your daily nutrition Review your daily calorie intake on the calendar. Check your macro balance at a glance. ◆ Widget support Track your sweet-crafting progress anytime with a home screen widget.
PiyoHug
This app helps you reduce screen time by gamifying digital detox. As you spend less time on your phone, a virtual chick grows and evolves through multiple stages and breeds. It also features a stamp rally to track your travel across Japan and a collection album for your grown chickens.
- Virtual chick growth based on screen time reduction
- Unlock 24 chicken breeds and 6 growth stages
- 47 Prefectures Stamp Rally for travel tracking
- Chicken Album to record raised chickens
- Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets
- AI background generation (Premium)
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[Close Your Phone and Raise a Chick] The longer you stay off your phone, the faster your chick grows. PiyoHug is a gentle digital detox app: you watch over a tiny life while your screen time quietly goes down. ■ Time away from your screen becomes growth energy Growth speed is highest while your screen is locked. As you naturally pick up your phone less, your chick grows into a full-grown chicken. While you sleep, go out, or focus on work or study, your chick keeps growing. ■ 6 growth stages and 24 chicken breeds ・Egg → Baby chick → Chick → Young chicken → Chicken → Egg-laying chicken ・Depending on how you raise it and a little luck, it branches into 24 breeds, including White Leghorn, Nagoya Cochin, Silkie and the legendary golden chicken ・Once grown, it lays an egg — tap it and the next generation begins, an endless raising cycle ■ 47 Prefectures Stamp Rally ・Your location automatically unlocks the silhouettes of all 47 prefectures of Japan ・Fill in the map little by little as a record of trips, business travel and visits home ・Check your progress toward covering the whole country at a glance ■ Keep your history in the Chicken Album ・Every chicken you raise is recorded automatically ・Rarity, number of appearances, days raised and the prefecture where it grew are all saved ・Collect the rare gold, red and black variants ■ Home Screen & Lock Screen widgets ・See how far your chick has grown every time you pick up your phone ・Home Screen (small and medium) and Lock Screen (circular, rectangular, inline) are all supported ・Feed your chick straight from the widget with App Intents (once a day, for a small boost) ■ Make it your own ・Choose from 6 soft pastel background colors ・Set a photo from your camera or library as the background ・Generate an original AI background (Premium) for a room no one else has ■ Gentle notifications ・Only what matters: growth milestones and feeding time ・Open the app from a notification and confetti welcomes you ■ Who it is for ・Anyone who wants to cut down on phone use, gently ・People who want a digital detox habit that is actually fun ・Fans of watch-over games rather than idle tappers ・Anyone who wants a cute companion to check on each day ・travelers aiming to complete all 47 prefectures ・Anyone who wants a cute Home Screen widget ■ Premium (In-App Purchase) ・Monthly plan ・3-month plan ・One-time purchase (lifetime Premium) ・Golden Egg (guaranteed gold variant) ・Rare Egg (guaranteed rare variant, randomly drawn) Prices are shown on the purchase screen inside the app. Premium benefits: no ads, AI background generation, custom images, all variants unlocked and more. PiyoHug is designed so you can enjoy it all the way through for free. ■ About auto-renewable subscriptions ・Payment is charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase ・The subscription renews automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period ・You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time in your App Store account settings ・Terms of Use: https://piyohugweb.vercel.app/terms ・Privacy Policy: https://piyohugweb.vercel.app/privacy ■ Support and contact support@piyohug.com Official site: https://piyohugweb.vercel.app Why not start a gentler day, a little further from your phone, together with a small chick?
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: macalo at none against PiyoHug's shown. macalo also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 75%). PiyoHug's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs fortnightly). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model and device support 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. macalo sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and PiyoHug sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
macalo ships an update fortnightly, PiyoHug every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | macalo | PiyoHug |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better | 75.0% of reviews |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 50 MB | 50 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Raizo Kawaguchi | jin mizoi |
Customer experience
macalo
PiyoHug
In-app purchases
macalo
- macalo Premium (Monthly)3 Days trial$4.991 Month
- macalo Premium (Yearly)3 Days trial$54.991 Year
- 1 Sugar Gem$0.99
- 5 Sugar Gems$2.99
- 10 Sugar Gems$5.99
PiyoHug
- 月額プラン$5.991 Month
- 3ヶ月プラン$11.993 Months
- レアたまご$1.99
- 金のたまご$2.99





