Comparison

Life Dots vs Lens

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Life Dots

Visualize your life's progress with a simple grid of dots representing your day, month, year, or lifespan. A home screen widget offers a constant reminder to make the most of your time.

Highlights
  • Visualize time with dots
  • Track day, month, year, lifespan
  • Home screen widget
  • Lock screen widget
  • Motivation and urgency reminder
Features
Read full description

Life Dots helps you visualize your life in dots. See how much of your day, month, year, or expected lifespan has passed through a simple grid of dots. Add a widget to keep it visible on your Home Screen or Lock Screen. It’s easy to take time for granted without realizing how quickly it passes. When you need a little urgency or motivation, simply open the app or glance at your widget for a reminder to make the most of your time.

About

Lens

A private web browser focused on speed and simplicity. It blocks ads and trackers by default, offers customizable search engine options, and features automatic tab archiving. Enhanced privacy controls include Face ID protection for private tabs.

Highlights
  • Search-first interface
  • Ad and tracker blocking
  • Customizable search engines
  • Automatic tab archiving
  • Face ID protected private tabs
  • Link preview and translation
Features
Read full description

Lens is a web browser that stays out of your way. Open it and type: search comes first, your favourite sites are one tap away, and there's nothing else to learn. No ads, no trackers, no account, and nothing collected about you. Free. SEARCH FIRST • Lens opens straight to search, with your pinned sites one tap away. • Pick your search engine: DuckDuckGo, Brave, Kagi, Ecosia, Google or Bing. THE WEB, WITHOUT THE NOISE • Ads, trackers and most cookie pop-ups don't load. • Hide anything that bothers you on a page, and it stays hidden next time. PRIVATE ON ITS OWN • No account, no analytics, no tracking. Lens doesn't know who you are. • Lock private tabs with Face ID. • Forget This Website clears everything a site saved. • Secure connections everywhere, and tracking codes are cleaned from links. TABS THAT TIDY THEMSELVES • Tabs you haven't opened in a day move to the Archive. Nothing is lost. • A tab with a half-filled form stays open until you send it. • Pinch a page to see your tabs, swipe along the bar to switch, flick a tab up to close it. SMALL THINGS THAT HELP • Mini Player: keep listening while you browse, with Picture in Picture. • Downloads that keep going in the background. • Reader, in seven soft colours. • Translate pages right on your iPhone. • Press and hold a link to preview it, and scroll it, before you open it. • Buttons for Reader, Translate, video and Downloads show up only when you need them. • Zoom, fullscreen, desktop site and blocking, set for each site. • Swipe anywhere on a page to go back or forward. • Copy an article as clean Markdown. MADE FOR iPHONE DUO • Open, the page gets the whole big screen, with the bar down the side. • Half-fold it in landscape, and Reader becomes a book you turn page by page. • Closed, it's the same Lens you know from iPhone. WORKS WITH YOUR iPHONE • Make Lens your default browser. • iCloud Passwords, passkeys, one-time codes, Apple Pay and Wallet passes. • iCloud sync for pins, history and tabs, end-to-end encrypted. • Buttons for Control Center and the Lock Screen, and Siri and Shortcuts. FOR DESIGNERS AND DEVELOPERS Select any text to see which font draws it. Tap anything to see its box, colours and contrast, measure the gap between two elements, or pause the page to look at a menu. Turn on Developer Tools in Settings. LENS FOR MAC A free menu bar app with your pins, your iPhone's tabs and the pages you send from your iPhone. No feeds, no clutter, no AI you didn't ask for. If you like Lens, you can leave a tip and unlock extra app icons.

Screenshots

Life Dots4 screens
Lens4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Life Dots at none against Lens's 4. Life Dots also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Lens's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Lens sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Life Dots asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Life Dots against 4.9 for Lens. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 41 and 56 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Life Dots ships an update weekly, Lens every 2 days. Both last shipped on November 13, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Life Dots versus Lens: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLife DotsLens
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (41 ratings) — better4.9 (56 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings4156 — better
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size6 MB67 MB
Age rating+417+
DeveloperTHE DIGITAL MINIMALIST PTE. LTD.Maximos Angelakis

Customer experience

Life Dots

All ratings37 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews5 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Lens

All ratings54 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews21 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Life Dots

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Lens

One-time4
  • Coffee$3.99
  • Coffee & Snack$6.99
  • Lunch$14.99
Show 1 more
  • Big Thank-You$29.99

Questions

Is Life Dots free?
Life Dots is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Lens free?
Lens is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Life Dots or Lens?
Life Dots is rated higher. Life Dots averages 5.0 out of 5 from 41 ratings, while Lens averages 4.9 from 56 ratings.
Do Life Dots or Lens have ads?
Neither Life Dots nor Lens shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Life Dots or Lens?
Life Dots ships an update weekly, and Lens every 2 days. Most recently, Life Dots was updated on November 13, 2026 and Lens on November 13, 2026.

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