Ideon vs Precursor
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ideon
This app provides a private, scrollable feed to save and revisit ideas, links, files, and notes. Capture content manually or share from other apps, then organize with related notes and gentle reminders. It's designed for easily managing small but useful pieces of knowledge.
- Private feed for ideas, links, files, and notes
- Share links and files from other apps
- Manual posts with various media attachments
- Searchable concept library
- Gentle optional reminders for saved ideas
- Local storage for manually captured content
Read full descriptionHide full description
Ideon is a private, scrollable feed for the ideas, links, files, concepts, terminology, and insights you want to keep. Capture an idea manually with text, photos, video, audio, or file attachments. Share links and supported files from other apps into Ideon, then keep everything in a simple personal feed you can revisit later. Ideon is built for the small pieces of knowledge that are too useful to lose: AI answers, articles, places, documents, diagrams, study notes, and real-life observations. Add related notes to older posts, connect follow-up thoughts, and let Ideon gently bring useful ideas back when they may be worth revisiting. There are no decks to organize, sessions to complete, or study streaks to protect. Pull to reshuffle, keep scrolling, search your library, and mark ideas as useful, fragile, or mastered to influence when they return. Features: • A private feed for ideas, links, files, and notes • Share links and supported files from other apps • Manual posts with text, camera, photos, video, audio, and file attachments • Related notes and comments for follow-up thinking • Searchable concept library • Gentle optional reminders for older saved ideas • Subtle spaced-repetition weighting without flashcards • Local storage for manually captured content • No advertising or cross-app tracking Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://www.ideonapp.app/privacy/
Precursor
This app helps you manage your screen time by setting hourly limits for specific applications. It resets your allowance each hour, preventing you from exceeding daily limits and promoting sustainable usage habits without guilt.
- Set hourly app limits
- Automatic hourly reset
- Customizable daily limits
- Friction to prevent impulsive overrides
- Privacy-focused design
- Optional premium features
Read full descriptionHide full description
Most screen time solutions give you one daily limit. Often we spend the whole limit by late morning, leaving us locked out of our apps for the rest of the day and feeling stranded; all it takes is one vulnerable moment and we hit that tempting "Ignore Limit For Today" button. That one impulsive moment costs you not only your time, but also the motivation to keep working on whatever it is you meant to do. PRECURSOR BREAKS THE CYCLE With Precursor you can finally set an hourly app limit. For example, you allot yourself five minutes of social media scrolling per hour, and you can trust that Precursor will reset that limit at the top of the next hour. Every hour, all day, automatically. You get the brainrot break you needed, but the scroll ends right before it turns into a mindless habit. Your brain doesn't panic because you know you'll get more time to scroll in just a short hour. So you never have to feel guilty for ignoring a limit ever again. No streaks. No guilt. No shame. Just a sustainable screen time solution your day can lean on. HOW IT WORKS - Pick the apps (or group of apps) that you'd like to limit and give them an hourly allowance: 5, 10, or 15 minutes (Precursor+ extends limits up to 30). - Pick the specific days you want your limits to run (for example, on weekdays you can set stricter limits and on weekends you can set more lenient limits). - When the allowance is spent, those apps get blocked. - At the top of the next hour, your limit resets. - You set your limits once and that screen time rhythm repeats every hour, all day, automatically; so you never have to think about them again. - Precursor also allows you to stop your limits, for whatever reason, but we add some friction to help you in those impulsive moments: 1) Before stopping your limits Precursor will prompt you to write a short reflection on why you need to in this moment. 2) You can add a passcode to lock in your limit (consider allowing a trusted person in your life to set it for you if you know you'll likely bypass it). 3) Unlike other screen time solutions that give you an "ignore limit" prompt right there in the blocked app screen, Precursor requires that you intentionally open the Precursor app to stop your limits. Restrictions and punishments don't work. They never have. Precursor is built on one principle: Real change comes from one's own ability to be honest and accountable. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Precursor is built on Apple's Screen Time technology. Your app choices are opaque tokens: we never see which apps you pick, and neither can anyone else. Your usage history stays on your phone, and Insights are computed on-device. There are no accounts and no ads. Optional, anonymous usage analytics are off unless you turn them on, and they still never include which apps you choose. HONEST BY DEFAULT Precursor is free to use, with an optional Precursor+ upgrade for more groups, other reset windows, longer limits, scheduled active hours, and Deep Focus sessions. Available as a one-time Lifetime purchase if you prefer to own your productivity tools rather than subscribe. Monthly and Yearly both start with one month free. No subscription is required to keep the core, and the terms are spelled out plainly before anything renews. Please note: Deleting Precursor removes every limit. Precursor is an independently developed app by a one-person studio, Precursor Labs. Precursor+ Monthly and Yearly are auto-renewable subscriptions. Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. A subscription renews automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the current period ends, and you can manage or cancel anytime in your Apple ID settings. Lifetime is a one-time purchase, not a subscription. Privacy Policy: https://precursorlabs.studio/privacy.html Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Apple's Terms and Policies: http://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Precursor at 14 against Ideon's 2. On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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. Ideon sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Precursor sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Ideon against 4.9 for Precursor. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Precursor has 14 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Ideon ships an update every 5 days, Precursor weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ideon | Precursor |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | 4.9 (14 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 14 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days — better | Weekly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 8 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Mohamed Abdelsalam | Precursor Labs |
Customer experience
Ideon
Precursor
In-app purchases
Ideon
- Ideon Lifetime$2.99
Precursor
- Monthly7 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Yearly7 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Lifetime$99.99







