Silo PDF vs Squirrel

PDF tools that stay on your phone. Pay once. Use forever. Silo is a private, on-device PDF toolkit for iPhone and iPad. Open a document, edit it, save the result. Nothing is ever uploaded. No account. No subscription. No tracking. Just a fast, focused PDF app that respects what's inside your files. EVERYTHING RUNS ON YOUR DEVICE Open a packet sniffer next to any other PDF tool and watch what happens when you compress a document: your file is uploaded to a server, often in another country. Open one next to Silo and watch nothing happen. Compress, OCR, redact, scan, watermark — every operation runs locally using Apple's own frameworks. Your contracts, tax returns, medical records and client documents never leave your iPhone. ONE PAYMENT. NEVER AGAIN. Most serious PDF apps on iOS are now yearly subscriptions. Silo is a one-time purchase. You pay once and the app is yours — no recurring fee, no expiring license, no surprise "Pro+" tier next year, no upsell screen tucked behind every button. The price you pay is the price. FREE FOREVER • Beautiful PDF viewer with smooth scroll and pinch-zoom • Set Silo as your default PDF viewer on iOS 26 • Recents, search, and Files app integration • Merge multiple PDFs in any order • Split a PDF by range, by count, or by specific pages • Rotate pages, individually or all at once • Convert images to a single PDF PRO TOOLS — UNLOCK ONCE • Document scanner — Apple's edge-detection camera, multi-page output • Compress for email or web with target-size presets • OCR — make scanned PDFs searchable, powered by Apple Vision • Redact — find and remove SSNs, EINs, phone numbers, emails and dates • Reorder and delete pages with drag-to-reorder thumbnails • Password protect with user and owner passwords • Watermark with custom text, opacity, rotation and tiling • Extract selected pages into a new PDF BUILT ON APPLE FRAMEWORKS Silo uses Apple's PdfKit for rendering, the Vision framework for OCR, and VisionKit for the document scanner. There are no third-party PDF servers, no cloud-OCR APIs, no analytics SDKs and no crash reporters that read your file contents. The only network calls Silo makes are to Apple and to RevenueCat to verify your purchase. Both are listed in Settings → Privacy. WHAT SILO WILL NEVER DO Silo has a privacy nutrition label of "Data Not Collected" in the App Store. That's the strongest possible privacy label Apple awards. It means we have no idea who you are, what you've processed, or how you use the app. We can't tell you because we never receive anything. • Upload your files anywhere • Require an account or sign-in • Charge a subscription • Show ads • Track you • Sell your data • Add a paid "Pro+" tier later PRIVACY MANIFEST Silo's privacy manifest declares "App Functionality only" file access with zero data collection. You can verify this in the App Privacy section above. We don't collect names, emails, contacts, identifiers or usage data. We literally cannot see your documents because we never receive them. A NOTE ON LANGUAGE Silo's interface is in English in v1. Tool names and labels are not localized yet. PDF operations themselves are language-agnostic — merge, split, compress, sign and watermark work on documents in any language. The OCR engine is tuned for English; it will pick up other Latin-script languages but accuracy is highest on English text. Pay once. Keep your files. Get back to work.

Some apps you open on purpose. Some you open out of habit. Squirrel turns the habit into savings, money you keep and invest. I almost never chose to open Instagram, it was always a knee-jerk reaction to being on my phone with nothing better to do. Growing up, staying focused and managing my time has always been a real struggle for me, and as social media got bigger, I felt more and more susceptible to doom scrolling and being careless with how I used these apps. But I never wanted to delete them. I truly believe there's a time and place for all of them. A lot of my relationships are better because of social media, whether that be from sending memes to friends, looking back on old memories, meeting my college roommate (true story), and even meeting my now girlfriend (another true story). It would be hypocritical to say social media hasn't improved my life, it certainly has. But the problem is the other side of it, the hours I lost without consciously deciding to. I've tried the built-in screen time limits. I had Instagram capped at 40 minutes a day... that same week I spent 12 hours and 48 minutes on it, more than double my next most used app, because "ignore limit for today" is one tap away. The week after I started using Squirrel it was 1 hour and 45 minutes. The week after that, 56 minutes. That's just my usage, but the drop was hard to argue with. Squirrel is different because it doesn't treat these apps as the enemy. Other apps do the blocking part, but none of them connect it to the other thing people my age are behind on, which is investing. Two problems most college students and young adults have: too much time on their phones, and no idea where to start with money. Squirrel puts them together so each one fixes the other. HOW IT WORKS Pick the apps you want to put behind a decision. Opening one is your cue to set a few dollars aside for yourself. Nothing is charged. No money moves through Squirrel. It only records what you set aside. You invest it yourself, wherever you already invest, and tell Squirrel what you bought. The optional Portfolio upgrade tracks it so you can watch it grow. NOTHING IS CHARGED Opening a blocked app is always free. The amount you set aside is a note to yourself, like a swear jar. Squirrel never processes a payment for it, never connects to your bank or brokerage, and never moves money. You decide what to do with it, outside the app. There are no goals, no targets, no limits, and no streaks. There is nothing to fail. FREE AND PAID Blocking, setting money aside, and your savings history are free forever. The Portfolio view (holdings, growth charts, market prices, and projections) is an optional paid upgrade: $19.99 once, or $8.99/year auto-renewing. Prices may vary by region. Portfolio features shown in the screenshots are part of this upgrade, and have nothing to do with blocking or opening apps. No account, no login, no ads, no tracking. Everything stays on your phone and in your own iCloud. Squirrel is not a bank, broker, or financial advisor and does not give investment advice. You make every investment yourself. Any growth figures shown are illustrations, not guarantees. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://brian-hall-dev.github.io/squirrel-site/#privacy