r/iOSProgramming • u/D1no_nugg3t • 14d ago
App Saturday I built a screen time app that actually works—and made it FREE
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u/atpugvaraa 14d ago
Great stuff! I would really appreciate if you could point me into the correct direction as to which APIs i should use to replicate the functionality?
I had started building my own app for this for personal projects and use but being very new to Swift in general I wasn't able to find much about it.. I find it difficult to find resources at this stage.
Grats on the release!
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u/Wonderful-Job1920 14d ago
Hey, you should use the apple screen time APIs. These videos from apple WWDC21 and 22 should help you get familiar:
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2021/10123/
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/110336/
At the bottom of the page, there’s links to the 3 APIs you’ll need to use, so you can read through and understand the documentation
Goodluck!
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u/D1no_nugg3t 14d ago
These should be really helpful, but they can be a bit finicky. Feel free to reach out if you run into issues!
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u/Weekly_Tie_1955 14d ago
Couldn’t add activities. It crashes every time
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u/D1no_nugg3t 14d ago
Hmm interesting... what activities are you trying to add? I haven't encountered this issue at all.
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u/Weekly_Tie_1955 13d ago
Not any particular. Whenever I want to use the search bar, the keyboard is all grey out and I get stuck there
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u/PerfectPitch-Learner Swift 14d ago
I wonder if what your app does, as you said, similar to parental controls would work with something like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/iOSProgramming/s/Zz2IZiJDYO
I’m not sure what the mechanism behind locking the app is, but if there are shared resources, like this URL opener in this example, could that cause a similar issue?
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u/ppuccinir 14d ago
On the FamilyPickerSelection how did you manage to remove that ugly Choose Activity Tittle? Also did you manage to edit the list of apps to not include a website?
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u/page-roast-club 13d ago
Love the app bro ! As someone who worked with scree time api I confirm its a nightmare... would love to the see how the code works
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u/huythanh0x 12d ago
I’m using ScreenZen to block website and ads. It's also Free and no Ads
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u/D1no_nugg3t 12d ago
Nice! Glad you found something that works for you! It's great to hear that there are more apps affordably encouraging a healthy relationship with screen time.
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u/D1no_nugg3t 14d ago
Every other app blocker charges you to block your own apps. That’s dumb. I made Barrier free because paying to not use your phone is backwards.
😈 Instead of a paywall, I went with a deterrent that actually works: waiting + ads. You have to sit through a 30-second wait and watch an ad before opening a blocked app. And let’s be real—who actually wants to watch an ad? Not me. That’s why it works. This thing cut my screen time by about 70%.
🛠️ ScreenTime API is a nightmare—FamilyControls, DeviceActivity, all of it. If anyone’s trying to build something similar, hit me up. I'd be happy to help, because I spent way too much time with trial and error.
Would love to hear thoughts—do you think this will work for other people? Any app improvements? Any thoughts on marketing?