Focus Blocks vs Hardstop

Focus Blocks is an app blocker for iPhone and iPad that puts distracting apps out of reach during the time you set aside to focus. Choose the apps. Choose the rule. Block during focus hours, allow only inside chosen windows, or set a daily app budget. When a rule applies, selected apps are hidden system-wide until they are allowed again. No willpower games, no streaks, no social layer — just one clear setting that gives you your attention back. Built on Apple's Screen Time APIs, Focus Blocks works entirely on your device. It has no backend and no account. Your rules sync between your own devices through iCloud, under your own Apple ID. Screen Time app selections are private device-local tokens, so each device asks you to confirm the apps it should block before enabling a synced rule there. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Create as many focus blocks as you want — mornings, weekdays, deep-work afternoons • Pick specific apps and whole categories in one tap • Block during a schedule, allow only during a schedule, or set a daily limit • Enable synced rules separately on each device after confirming local app selections • Add a weekly setup window so blocks cannot be edited on impulse • Enable or disable any inactive block from one screen PRIVACY BY DEFAULT • No sign-up, no account • No analytics, no ads, no third-party SDKs • Uses Apple's Screen Time framework — selections and usage stay on-device • iCloud Key-Value Store is the only remote storage, and it lives in your own Apple ID Focus Blocks is self-directed. It is not a parental-control product and does not monitor or manage other people's devices. Requires iOS 18 or later.

Start a hard stop and your apps are shut until the time is up. Not paused. Not until you change your mind. Until it is up. Most blockers can be undone in two taps: edit the schedule, or delete it. Hardstop cannot. While a block runs, the rules that define it are frozen the schedule cannot be edited to end early, disabled or deleted, and blocked apps cannot be removed from the list. Pay once. No subscription, no account, no data collected. Everything runs on your iPhone. Block now, or set hours that repeat Tap once and pick a length: fifteen minutes, an hour, three hours. The apps you chose are shut for that long, with no schedule to build first. Make it a hard stop and there is no way out at all no wait, no pass, no cancel button. Schedules do the hours you already know about: a start time, an end time, and the days it repeats. Blocking continues whether or not Hardstop is running, and survives restarting your iPhone. Three ways in, and each one costs more Outside a hard stop you can ask to be let into a blocked app. Asking starts a wait rather than opening it, and when the wait is over you have to come back and ask again. That second, deliberate step is the point. Every pass after the first in the same block costs more: thirty seconds becomes ninety, then three minutes. And you only get three per block. The first slip of an afternoon stays cheap. The fourth is not offered. A pass is temporary too. After sixteen minutes the block returns on its own, without you having to remember to put it back. A record of what actually happened When a block ends, Hardstop writes down whether you saw it through or asked your way in, and how many times. Not screen time statistics a record of you against your own rules. It never leaves your iPhone. Strict mode With strict mode on, every block behaves like a hard stop, and strict mode cannot be switched off while one is running. Deleting Hardstop would still lift a block. No app on iOS can prevent that, and this one will not claim otherwise. What it uses Hardstop blocks apps through Apple's Screen Time framework, which runs entirely on your device. It asks for access for you, as an adult managing your own iPhone. It is not a parental-controls app: it cannot see, manage or report on another person's device. Free and unlocked Blocking is never the thing you pay for. The free version blocks as many apps and categories as you like, on one schedule, with hard stops and the record included. The unlock is a single purchase adding unlimited schedules, strict mode, and a wait length of your choosing. It is not a subscription. Nothing renews. Privacy Hardstop has no account, no server and no analytics. Your schedules and the apps you block never leave your iPhone, because there is nowhere for them to go.