Paws 🐾

SwiftSwiftUIWidgetKitKeychainiOS 17
OverviewPrivacySupport

What It Does

  • Replaces your home screen with a plain text list of apps — no icons, no color, no distraction.
  • Free apps open immediately. Restricted apps require a countdown delay and a PIN before opening.
  • The friction is the feature: when opening Instagram means waiting 30 seconds and typing a PIN, you start asking whether you actually want to.
  • Paws is developed and operated by Masakazu Yasumoto.

How It Works

  • A WidgetKit widget fills your home screen with a plain monospaced list of app names.
  • Tapping a free app opens it immediately via its URL scheme.
  • Tapping a restricted app starts a countdown (5–300 seconds, user-configured), then prompts for a 4-digit PIN.
  • PIN is stored in the device Keychain — device-only, never backed up to iCloud.
  • Repeated wrong PINs trigger an exponential lockout (30s → 1m → 5m → 10m).

Setup

  1. Install Paws and complete the onboarding (takes ~5 minutes).
  2. Enable grayscale in iOS Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size.
  3. Save the pure black wallpaper to Photos and set it as your home screen.
  4. Use Focus Mode to hide all home screen pages except the one with the Paws widget.
  5. Add the Paws widget to that one page and set your PIN.
  6. Add apps to your list and mark social media, news, or any other time-sink as restricted.

Links