Daily limits for the apps you keep

Blocking is all-or-nothing, and for a few apps that is the wrong shape. You do want Instagram; you do not want ninety minutes of it. A limit is the version of the rule you can actually keep.

How it behaves

• The budget is per day and per app. When it runs out, the app is blocked until tomorrow.
• It applies with no session running. This is the part people find surprising and end up relying on: the limit is a standing rule, not something that only exists inside a lock.
• It resets at midnight, on your phone's clock.

The locked limit

A limit you can raise in two taps is a suggestion. So a limit can be locked to the key: lowering it is always free, raising it means fetching your Spark and tapping it. That keeps the easy direction easy and puts a walk in front of the direction you will regret.

It is worth setting the first one deliberately high. A limit you blow through by 10 a.m. teaches you to ignore the whole mechanism; one that bites at the point you would have stopped anyway teaches you what your day actually looks like.

Why Android only

Counting how long an app has been in the foreground needs the usage-access permission Android exposes and Apple does not. On iPhone the app shows an honest plate on this screen explaining that rather than a switch that would do nothing — Apple's own Screen Time offers app limits, and on an iPhone that is the tool for this job.

The honest limits

• Android only, for the reason above.
• It counts foreground time. An app playing audio in the background is not spending its budget.
• A locked limit can still be raised — by walking to the key. Nothing here traps you.