RevaInstall

Eight seconds between the reach and the app. Twelve, for some.

Every interruption stops working. Reva is the one built to measure the day yours does, on each app on its own.

Open the App Store What happens when you install it

iPhone · No account needed · Nobody but you can read your answers
One week free on the monthly plan, two weeks on the yearly

The screen goes dark over eight seconds — twelve, if your answers say your hand gets there before you do.

What the reading is made of

Your answers first. Then the name.

Reva quotes what you said back to you before it calls the pattern anything. The app calls that order non-negotiable, and the only thing that removes the quoting is having nothing worth quoting.

Then it offers three names for what your answers describe, and you pick the one you recognise. The name decides which sentence the pause says to you, how long it holds, and which of the five rungs your apps can reach.

An example. Not your data.
Why we’re saying that

Almost always. The phone is in your hand before the decision to pick it up ever happens.

The name you chose

The Evening Drift

This is a pattern, not a personality.

The reading that sells nothing

Some readings end by telling you there is nothing here to break.

One of the two, in full
Your answers don't look like a control problem. You mostly decide to pick it up, and what you go to is something you wanted to watch or read. What you have looks like a volume problem. Nothing here needs breaking. It needs a boundary. If that's all it is, a boundary is enough on its own, and if it isn't, come back and tell us we were wrong.

Reva sorts your answers into one of eight readings, and two of the eight are this one. Analytics counts how often it is shown, against an anonymous ID, never a name or an account. There is no price on that screen and nothing to sign up to. If you later choose to put a pause in front of something, Reva will ask you to pay for the stronger levels like anyone else — it does not pretend the offer never existed.

A week later it asks whether the boundary held. If it can answer that from your own pauses it does; if it cannot, it asks you instead of guessing, and if you say it did not hold, it says it was wrong.

The prior

Every interruption stops working. Reva says so first.

  1. At firstIt worked.
  2. ThenYour thumb learned the pattern.
  3. After thatYou were through it before you had read it.
  4. AndNothing told you the day that started.

A pause like this stops working. Your thumb learns the pattern and starts dismissing it before you've read it. We don't have a number for how long that takes, and anyone who gives you one is guessing, so we measure yours, and we'll tell you the day it happens.

This will stop workingShown once, before your first pause.

You’ve been tapping through in under 1 second for 4 days. It stopped working. We’ve changed it.

Show me
An example. Not your data.This is the screen Reva shows when its own measurements say a pause has stopped working on one of your apps. The seconds and the days in it are yours. These ones are not.

The ladder

Escalation is not a punishment. It is the same pause, made expensive again.

01 and 02 are free, on as many apps as you want. 03, 04 and 05 are the paid part.

  1. 01

    The pauseFree

    The screen goes dark over eight seconds — twelve, if your answers say your hand gets there before you do. One sentence on it, and a link that says Open anyway. When the light has gone, nothing asks you to do anything.

  2. 02

    The pause, and a boxFree

    The same pause, then a box asking what you were in the middle of. Type it or leave it. What you type is yours: it comes back in the weekly reading, word for word, with nothing counted on it.

  3. 03

    The pause, and an offerPlus

    The same pause, then the thing you said you would rather be doing, and a button that says Do that instead.

  4. 04

    The pause, and a namePlus

    The same as 03, and it names the person you asked to keep an eye on this. What they would ever see is one number a day — not the app, not the hour, not what you typed. Open anyway is still there, and now it has to be held down.

  5. 05

    ClosedPlus

    No pause and nothing to decide. The apps you named do not open until the hours you set are over.

When it moves

Reva moves a rung when your own numbers say the pause has stopped working. Two things both have to be true over a fortnight: the time you take to decide has to fall by at least 1.2 seconds, and how often you go through has to rise by at least 20 points. It watches each app on its own and never pools them.

When it refuses to

If you are getting quicker on every app you gated, that is you getting quicker at phones, and Reva does not move. It also spends its first thirty pauses on a phone measuring how long that phone takes to hand a screen over, because an effect smaller than its own error is not an effect.

Who gets which

Not everyone gets all five. If your answers say your hand gets there before you do, 02 is skipped — a box is no use to someone who was never asked. 04 is the other way round: it only exists if your answers say the phone is getting you away from something, and only if you have named a person for it to name.

Refusals

Three of the twelve things we have decided not to build.

All twelve
  • 02

    Time reclaimed

    What it claims:

    It shows you the hours you got back.

    Why it's out:

    iOS doesn't give an app that number, so we'd be inventing it. And we can't see what you did with time you didn't spend here.

  • 06

    Dopamine resets

    What it claims:

    A stretch of abstinence resets your reward system.

    Why it's out:

    The word is borrowed from something that doesn't work this way. Nothing measures the reset, so nothing can tell you whether it happened.

  • 08

    Notifications designed to bring you back

    What it claims:

    A nudge at the right moment keeps you engaged.

    Why it's out:

    An app about compulsive checking, pinging you to come and check it. One morning message, at a time you set, and nothing else ever.

What it sends, what it costs, what leaves

Price

Monthly or yearly. A week free on the month, two on the year. iPhone.

The price is shown in the App Store, in your own currency. One week free on the monthly plan, two weeks on the yearly. Nothing is charged until the free trial is over, and the App Store tells you before it does, on its own schedule rather than ours. Either plan renews until you cancel it.

Free for good: the questions, the reading, the pause at 01 and 02, as many apps as you want to put one in front of, and the crisis line. Paid: the three stronger pauses, and the detail in the weekly reading rather than just the count. None of it needs an account.

Notifications

One a day, and only if you ask for it.

It starts switched off. Turn it on and you pick the minute. If we chose the time, we would choose the time you are most likely to open it, and that is a different product.

This is the only notification Reva sends, and there will never be another one.

What leaves the phone

Not your answers. Not your timings.

You can sign in with Apple, and you never have to. An account lets Reva Plus follow you to another phone and gives an encrypted backup somewhere to live. The backup is locked on your phone with a key only you hold. We cannot read it, and if you lose the key we cannot get it back.

What does leave: crash reports, product analytics events, your purchase status, and a check with the App Store for a newer version. Your account, only if you sign in. Four values a day for one person, only if you name one. No answers, no typed words, and never which app a pause was for.

Nineteen questions. About five minutes. There are no right answers and nothing is timed.

At the end, you’ll get a description of what your answers add up to.

What happens when you install it

iPhone · No account needed · Nobody but you can read your answers