Your phone quizzes you before it lets you scroll.

Emberlock locks the apps that eat your day. The way back in is a question — answered right, they open on a timer you chose.

Download on the App Store See how it works

Free · no account · nothing leaves your phone

9:41
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE ROUND

Which element has the atomic number 1?

Helium
Hydrogen
Oxygen
Carbon

2 more to unlock · keep going

The loop

Not a wall. A toll.

Blockers fail because the first time they are inconvenient, you switch them off. Emberlock never says no — it says earn it, and that is a bargain your brain will actually take.

Nice try.

Instagram is locked until you answer a couple of cards.

Study to unlock

You reach for the app

The shield catches the reach you did not decide to make.

9:41
BIOLOGY

Where does glycolysis occur?

Cytoplasm
Nucleus
Ribosome

You answer

Thirty seconds on whatever you are actually studying.

9:41
6
day streak
Apps open · 17:02 left
re-locks at 1:37 PM

They open, on your timer

A window you set — 15 to 120 minutes — then it re-locks.

Your material

Your notes become the course.

Paste your lecture notes, drop in a PDF, add a link, or photograph a page. Emberlock writes the lessons, the questions and a diagram from your own material — generated on the iPhone in your hand, never uploaded.

Miss one and it quotes the line from your notes back at you. So the toll you pay to open Instagram is the exact thing you are behind on.

Guides run on Apple Intelligence and need an iPhone 15 Pro or later. Your first custom guide is free; unlimited guides are part of Pro.

9:41
YOUR MATERIAL

Build a guide from your notes

Bio lecture 4
4,182 characters
0 / 24,000 characters 0/8 sources
✨ Build my free guide

Your first guide is free — every guide after this one is a Pro feature.

Building your course — this can take up to a minute.

Reading everything you gave me. No shortcuts from here.

9:41

Bio midterm — chapters 4–6

0/4 modules · easy level

Energy in the Cell
Inside Photosynthesis
Cellular Respiration
Reading the Equations
9:41
LEARN FIRST

From glucose to usable ATP

Respiration dismantles glucose in stages. Glycolysis splits it in the cytoplasm for a small ATP payout, with or without oxygen.

1Glycolysis splits glucose in the cytoplasm
2Pyruvate enters the mitochondria
3The electron transport chain extracts far more energy
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Most ATP is produced inside the mitochondria

Four ways in

Not in the mood to think? Move instead.

Pick how you want to earn your scroll. You can change it any time.

Study

Answer a card or two. Your apps open.

Read & Quiz

Read a short lesson, then prove you read it.

Reps

Push-ups, squats or jumping jacks, counted by the phone.

Hold

A plank. The timer only runs while you are actually still.

Reps

Ten push-ups, counted by the phone.

Pocket it or hold it — the accelerometer counts each rep and buzzes. No honesty system, no tapping a button ten times, and a sensitivity setting so a squat and a jumping jack both register.

The last rep opens your apps. Some days that is a genuinely easier price than two flashcards.

10 reps to unlock

Squats, push-ups, jumping jacks — hold the phone or pocket it, get into position, then start. Each counted rep buzzes.

▶ Start counting
Strict NormalRelaxed

Sensitivity · Phone in a pocket: push-ups, squats, jumping jacks.

0/10

REPS

In your pocket or in your hand — both work.

＋ Count a rep

10 to go · your scroll is doing push-ups too

10 reps. Strong.

Unlocking your apps…

Hold for 0:30

Keep the phone on you — in a hand or a pocket — then start. The timer pauses if you leave, or if the phone stops moving like it's held.

▶ Start the hold
0:30 OF 0:30

Hold steady.

Hold steadier. Stillness is the whole assignment.

🔥 Every second here is earned scroll

Held it. Steady.

Unlocking your apps…

Hold

A plank your phone can tell you're faking.

Thirty seconds of stillness. The catch is that the timer only runs while the phone is actually being held — put it down on a table and it stops, wave it around and it stops.

It never resets and never fails you. It just waits, which turns out to be more persuasive than punishment. Watch the counter freeze in the demo — that's the whole feature.

9:41
Review due
12 items from earlier — about 2 minutes.
Bio midterm — chapters 4–6 2/4
Next: Cellular Respiration
QUICK RECAP

From your last sessions

Oxygen is the final electron acceptor

Spaced repetition

Miss a card? It comes back.

Anything you get wrong returns the next day, then three days later, then a week — until you actually know it. It arrives as a two-minute recap, not a chore.

This is the part that turns a screen-time gimmick into something that teaches you.

Always in sight

The countdown lives on your Home Screen.

A widget for your streak, your remaining free unlocks and the window ticking down. When your apps are open, a Live Activity keeps the timer in the Dynamic Island so you always know what you are spending.

Every clean week banks a Streak Shield, up to two. Miss a day and a shield spends itself to cover it — because one bad day should not delete a month of work.

9:41
🔓 NOW OPEN
16:13
🔥 6-day streak

Emberlock

Privacy

No account. No ads. No tracking.

There is no sign-up, because there is nothing to sign up to. The question bank works offline. Guides are generated on your device. Which apps you block and what you study never leave your phone — Emberlock's App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected, and it means it.

Pricing

Free to study. Pro when you are hooked.

Free

$0
  • ✓Five unlocks a day, every day
  • ✓All 25+ subjects and 1,500+ questions, offline
  • ✓All four unlock modes, streaks and the Study Wall
  • ✓Your first custom guide, free

Pro

$29.99 once — or $19.99/year
  • ✓Unlimited unlocks. No daily cap.
  • ✓Unlimited guides from your own notes, PDFs and photos
  • ✓Everything in Free, forever
  • ✓The annual plan starts with a 3-day free trial

One payment gets you the lifetime unlock. No subscription required, ever.

Questions

The honest answers

Isn't this just another app blocker?

Most blockers gate on time — a timer, or a wait. Emberlock gates on doing something. The difference matters: a wait teaches you to sit there resenting it, and a task you can actually complete turns the interruption into the one useful thing you did with that minute.

Can't I just delete the app or turn it off?

Yes, and that is deliberate. Emberlock is a speed bump for the unconscious reach, not a prison. Anything that truly locks you out gets uninstalled the first time it is genuinely inconvenient — so it does not try.

Do my notes get uploaded anywhere?

No. Guides are generated on your device with Apple Intelligence, and the question bank is bundled and offline. Nothing about what you study or block is sent anywhere.

Which iPhones can build guides from my notes?

Guide generation needs Apple Intelligence, which means iPhone 15 Pro or later. Everything else in Emberlock — the quiz lock, all four unlock modes, streaks, the review deck, the widget — works on any iPhone running a current iOS.

Is there an Android version?

No, and honestly there cannot be a good one yet. Emberlock is built on Apple's Screen Time API, which is what makes the blocking trustworthy. There is no equivalent on Android that a solo developer could ship without cutting corners.

What does it block?

Apps you pick, whole categories, and websites. You choose them once during setup and can change them whenever — with a warning if you try to block something like Phone or Messages.

Ready?

Make your phone earn its keep.

Download on the App Store

Free · five unlocks a day · no account