How it works
A toolkit, not a fixed formula
What works for you is up to you. Choose your own unblock steps, save them as a profile, and decide whether the cost stays fixed, varies, or climbs.
Pick what to block
Whatever actually gets you. Social media, games, a single app, or a whole category.
Set your unblock steps
Stack waits, taps, passphrases, puzzles, shakes, and physical scans in whatever order makes grabbing your phone take a second thought instead of none.
Save it as a profile
Vacation days and focus hours don't need the same amount standing in the way. Keep as many profiles as you want, each with its own steps.
Unblock steps
Unblock steps are just an ordered list of these. Wait 90 seconds, then type a passphrase, for example. Mix as many as you want in whatever order you want.
Wait
Sit out a countdown. A second costs a second, which makes it the baseline every other step is measured against.
Tap
Tap a target a set number of times. About six tenths of a second each.
Type
Retype a generated passphrase, exactly. Ficus generates it, so it can't be something your thumbs already know by heart.
Puzzle
Solve a multiplication problem. Two digits is a speed bump. Go wider and it's a real stop.
Shake
Shake the phone a set number of times. Swaps to a wait when shaking isn't an option.
Physical scan
Scan an NFC tag or QR code you've stashed somewhere inconvenient. Costed at a full minute, because the time goes on the walk, not the scan.
Or let Ficus build them
Guessing whether twenty taps lands as trivial or punishing is hard. Say how long you want getting back in to take and Ficus proposes steps that add up to roughly that, which you can then edit, reorder, or throw out. Assemble them by hand instead and it still tallies the total, so a set reports something like "about 1.5 min to clear." The generator sticks to steps that work anywhere: never a shake, which is conspicuous in public, and never a scan, which assumes you own a tag.
Why not just pay for one of these?
Most screen time blockers charge somewhere between $30 and $100 for a single trick, one unblock method, one difficulty setting. Ficus bundles all of them and costs nothing.
| Typical paid blocker | Ficus | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $30–$100, often per device | Free, forever |
| Unblock methods | A scan or a tap, recombined and counted as more | Six kinds: waits, taps, passphrases, puzzles, shakes, and physical scans |
| Cost of a pause | Same every time | Fixed, random, or escalating. Your call, per profile |
| Data collected | Varies. Often an account, sometimes analytics | None. No analytics, no account, no network code |
Profiles for different situations
Save unblock steps as a named profile, with an emoji if you want one. One for late night scrolling, one for pomodoro breaks during work hours, or one that runs open-ended until you end it. Each profile keeps its own steps, its own duration, its own list of apps, so one can be trivial to pause and another brutal. Start a saved profile with one tap, or fire off a quick block without saving anything.
Pausing keeps the clock running
Clearing your unblock steps doesn't cancel anything. It buys a window, five minutes by default and thirty at the most, and then the block comes back on its own with the session still running. Finished early? Close the window yourself. Ending a session outright is a separate action, and it can carry its own, harder steps.
Three ways to price a pause
None keeps the same requirement every time. That's a real choice, not a fallback: a high, predictable cost never starts to feel unfair.
Random rolls a target somewhere between the floor you set and two and a half times it, then scales your own steps up to meet it. Twenty taps and a thirty second wait might come back as forty seven taps and seventy one seconds. It never drops below what you authored, and there's no pattern to pace yourself against.
Escalating adds repeats instead of scaling. Every pause you take today makes the next one some number of rounds longer, which keeps the price legible: it's always more of what you already saw. Pause steps and end steps escalate separately.
Effectiveness is up to you
No app on iOS can make a block truly unbreakable. Apple doesn't hand third-party apps that kind of power, and that's probably for the best. Ficus gives you the tools to beat impulse and habit, not to outlast someone determined to dig into Settings and turn Screen Time access off.