FocusFirst Screen Time Control vs Dawnbreak
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
FocusFirst Screen Time Control
This app helps you reclaim your time by blocking distracting applications and encouraging focused activity. It's designed to foster a more deliberate relationship with your phone, reducing mindless scrolling and guilt while building momentum towards your goals.
- Block distracting apps
- Earn screen time through focused activity
- Build healthy boundaries
- Reduce mindless scrolling
- Increase momentum towards goals
- Promotes deliberate phone use
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Take back control of your time. FocusFirst helps you spend less time scrolling and more time on the things that actually move your life forward. Whether you’re studying, building a business, learning a language, reading, exercising, or simply trying to be more intentional with your day, FocusFirst gives you a better way to protect your attention. Most apps compete for your focus. FocusFirst helps you reclaim it. Instead of relying on willpower alone, FocusFirst helps you build healthy boundaries around the apps that pull you off course. Block the distractions that interrupt your momentum, focus on something meaningful, and earn time back as you make progress. It’s a simple idea, but it changes the feeling of using your phone: - less mindless checking - less guilt - less friction when you want to stay on track - more momentum toward the work, habits, and routines you care about FocusFirst is built for people who want a calmer, more deliberate relationship with their phone. Not punishment. Not shame. Just a clearer way to stay aligned with your priorities. Focus first. Scroll later. FocusFirst is free to download, but a subscription is required to use the app. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Dawnbreak
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You do not oversleep because your alarm is too quiet. You oversleep because stopping it takes one thumb, half a second and no thought at all. Dawnbreak takes the thumb out of it. To stop the alarm you complete a mission: walk to the kitchen and point the camera at the kettle, do eight squats in front of the camera, solve arithmetic you would find easy at noon, scan the barcode on a box in another room. Stop it without the mission and, one minute later, it rings again. TWELVE MISSIONS - Math: mental arithmetic sized to the difficulty. Only Hard and Brutal are timed, and a wrong answer brings a new problem - Memory: watch which tiles light up, then tap the same ones - Sequence: repeat a run of colored pads that grows by one each time you get it right - Typing: retype a sentence word for word, from a short line at Easy to a long one at Brutal. Capitals and punctuation do not count - Shake: 15 to 100 shakes - Steps: 20 to 200 steps, counted by the phone - Squats: 3, 8, 15 or 25, counted by the front camera, on the device - Photo: register an object once, the kettle for instance. In the morning, point the camera at one like it. Recognition runs on the device and checks what the object is, not where it is - Barcode: register a barcode or QR code, say on a box in another room, then scan it - Draw: draw what it asks for, and on-device recognition checks it - Flap: a one-thumb flying game. Get through 2 to 15 gaps - Breathe: guided breathing, 3 to 10 cycles, from about 30 seconds to over three minutes AS HARD AS YOU NEED IT - Four difficulties: Easy, Medium, Hard and Brutal - Up to ten rounds of the same mission - Up to three more missions later in the morning, each one ringing 1 to 60 minutes after you clear the one before - Snooze from 1 to 30 minutes, as often as you allow, or not at all - Fourteen alarm tones, from gentle to savage - Try a mission first from the alarm editor, silently and with nothing armed. Two in the afternoon is a good time to find out what Brutal means IT DOES NOT LET GO - Relentless is on for every new alarm: stop the alarm without finishing the mission and it rings again a minute later on the lock screen, titled “Mission not done” - Closing the app is no way out: until the mission is done, the next ring is already set - It rings as a system alarm, through AlarmKit: with the app closed, the phone locked, silent mode on, and through every Focus, Do Not Disturb included. Requires iOS 26 - There is always a way out. The X in the corner of every mission screen asks you to confirm, then stops the alarm and logs the morning as a give-up, because an alarm that cannot be stopped is a hazard and not a feature EVERY MORNING, WRITTEN DOWN Up to 90 days of wake times, how long the missions took, streaks, snoozes, and the mornings you stopped it without the mission. The numbers are unflattering on purpose. That is what makes them useful. BUILT PROPERLY - Twelve languages, including Arabic, laid out right to left - Dark throughout, because you read this screen at 6am - A widget with the next alarm, for the lock screen and the home screen - No account. No sign-in. No ads. No analytics - Nothing leaves the phone. There is no server to leave it to FREE, ALL OF IT Every mission, every difficulty and every tone, from the first launch. There is nothing to buy: no subscription, no ads, no account. Privacy policy: https://dawnbreak.app/privacy.html Terms of use: https://dawnbreak.app/terms.html Support: https://dawnbreak.app/support.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Dawnbreak at none against FocusFirst Screen Time Control's 3. 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
Both are free to download. FocusFirst Screen Time Control sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per month. Dawnbreak asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | FocusFirst Screen Time Control | Dawnbreak |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Subscription | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 26.1 | 26.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 34 MB | 11 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Michael Riehl | Aymane BAMHAMED |
In-app purchases
FocusFirst Screen Time Control
- Focus First | Monthly7 Days trial$8.991 Month
- Focus First | Yearly1 Month trial$39.991 Year
- Focus First | Yearly7 Days trial$49.991 Year
Dawnbreak
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is FocusFirst Screen Time Control free?
Is Dawnbreak free?
Do FocusFirst Screen Time Control or Dawnbreak have ads?
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