Anchor vs Strict App Blocker

Some apps were designed to trap you. The feed doesn't end, and "five more minutes" always seems to turn into forty. That's not a willpower problem, it's the design working as intended. Anchor blocks the apps that do this by default, so opening one is always something you decided, never a doomscroll you fell into. THE IDEA Screen Time is built to be turned on. Anchor is built to already be on. There's no timer to start and no "focus mode" to remember. The apps you choose are blocked from the moment setup finishes, permanently, as the baseline state of your phone. The difference isn't less time in these apps. It's who decides when you get it. Want in? You ask for it. Open Anchor, set how long you actually need — five minutes, twenty, whatever the moment calls for — and access is granted for exactly that long. When it runs out, blocking resumes. This is the anchor that prevents you from losing your days to doomscrolling. RECLAIMED TIME, NOT WILLPOWER Anchor isn't a fast to survive. It doesn't track streaks or shame a slip. It tracks one thing: how much of the time you used to lose is coming back to you, every day, measured against the baseline you set for yourself in onboarding. Give it your age, and it shows you how much of your life you get back without these apps quietly eating it. HOW IT WORKS • Pick the apps and websites you drift into without deciding to. • From then on, every one of them is blocked, all the time. • Reach for one anyway, and the block screen meets you instead. • Want it? Open Anchor, set a duration, and go. One deliberate ask, no lecture. • When the time's up, the block returns on its own. Set a new intent whenever you want back in. BUILT TO GET OUT OF YOUR WAY • A Home Screen widget and Control Center button to drop anchor without hunting for the app. • Ask Siri to start or check a session. • A Live Activity keeps the countdown visible in your Dynamic Island while a session runs. YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS Anchor runs on Apple's Screen Time framework entirely on-device. The apps you block, the time you spend, and the breaks you take never leave your phone. There's no account, no server, and nothing to opt out of, because nothing is collected in the first place. Anchor doesn't ask you to want less. It makes sure that whenever you reach for one of these apps, it's because you decided to — not because your thumb got there first.

Set a daily time limit on the apps that eat your day, or shut them off completely between the hours you choose. When the time is gone, it's gone. Free. No account, no subscription, no trial that runs out. DAILY BUDGET Pick your worst apps and give them a limit. The timer counts down while you use them and resets each morning. Open a blocked app and you see how long is left, not a wall with no explanation. HARD MODE Schedule a window and the apps simply don't open. 9 to 5. 11pm to 7am. Whatever you need. No countdown, no bargaining. GREYSCALE Turn the screen black and white the moment you open something you're trying to cut down on. It sounds like a gimmick. It works better than it should. STRICT TRAINING Ten days to get used to it, then you can lock the settings so the version of you at 1am can't undo what you decided at 10am. WHY IT'S FREE Every other blocker wants forty dollars a year to help you use your phone less. This one doesn't. There's a tip jar in Settings if you want to, and that's the whole business model. No account means there's nothing to leak, and your data never leaves your phone. Dark mode, a sixty day history of the days you left your rules alone, and Otto, who tells you where you're at without nagging.