Ubrutt
Unbroken.
Ubrutt does not lock your phone. It puts a deliberate pause in front of the apps you chose, counts what actually happened, and tells you the truth about it.
The dinner hour with your kids. The hour of real work. Ubrutt protects unbroken stretches of attention — not by shutting you out, but by putting a few seconds between the impulse and the app, and by writing down what actually happened afterwards.
Requires iPhone. Seven days free, then NOK 399 per year.
Why we do not say “we block apps”
We read 411 negative reviews of 13 competitors before writing a line of code. The loudest complaint by far — 18.2% — is not that people cheat past the block. It is that the block quietly stops working.
The cause is structural. Everyone enforces through the same layer of iOS, and Apple’s own interface never signals when the restriction is lifted. The whole category is blind to its own failure, and users are the ones paying for that blindness.
Ubrutt makes a promise it can keep on every single launch, because its mechanism does not depend on anything else staying alive.
What the app does
The pause
You tap Instagram. Ubrutt arrives first: the app’s name, your own words for why it is on the list, a breath ring counting down, and the honest number — “You have opened Instagram 7 times today. You turned back 4.” Then you choose: put it down, or open anyway. Both buttons work, every time.
The open log
One row per open: which app, when, for how long, and what you chose. These are numbers no other app in the category can hand you — Apple’s screen-time figures can be displayed, but not read by the app displaying them. Yours are yours: look at them, compare weeks, export all of it as JSON.
The integrity ledger
A log that cannot be rewritten afterwards: every pause, every unlock you spent, and every rule you changed while that rule was live. Once a week you get a single number — did I keep my word. No points, no badges, no streak to lose.
Sessions
Set an hour of quiet. The session sits in the Dynamic Island and on the Lock Screen for its duration, and starts from Control Centre, the Home Screen, the Action button or Siri. It ends when the time is up, not when you have earned it.
Context rules
A rule is app × time window × weekday. Slack is frictionless 08:00–17:00 and frictioned afterwards. Instagram gets fifteen minutes at lunch. Outside the window the app opens completely untouched — your job lives in the same apps as your distraction, and a rule has to understand that.
Makker (your partner)
Invite one person. They see whether a session is running and when it ends, and your weekly number if you turn that on. They never see which app, never what you wrote, never where you are. The point is a witness, not a leaderboard — there is no ranking and no way to nag you from inside the app.
What Ubrutt cannot do
This is also in the app, under Settings → What Ubrutt cannot do. We would rather you read it here, before you pay, than discover it yourself in three weeks.
Setup cannot be automated
You create one automation per app in Apple’s Shortcuts app — eleven taps the first time, fewer for each app after that. There is no way for an app to create it for you, in iOS 26 or in the iOS 27 betas. Ubrutt walks you through every step and ships a test that tells you when it is working.
The pause is dependable from the Home Screen, not from everything
Open the app from the Home Screen and the pause arrives. From the App Switcher, Spotlight and some Control Centre deep links it is unreliable. That is a limitation in iOS we cannot fix — but we can say so, and strict mode solves it by replacing the app’s Home Screen icon with a shortcut that always goes through the pause.
Ubrutt is friction and honesty, not a lock
Open anyway always works, including after the day’s unlock budget is spent. You can delete the automation in a weak moment. Ubrutt does not promise to stop you; it promises to meet you first, and to write down what happened.
Ubrutt cannot see your total screen time
We do not use Apple’s Screen Time API at all. Ubrutt knows only the apps you set up yourself, and only from the moment you set them up. That is a real limitation, and at the same time the reason the app never asks for access to anything.
Ubrutt cannot turn on a Focus mode for you
No third-party app can on iOS, and iOS 26 added no way to. Apps that imply otherwise do it through a shortcut you have to build yourself.
Price
Ubrutt Pro costs NOK 399 per year — 33 kroner a month, about $39.99 outside Norway. The first seven days are free, and a notification arrives 48 hours before the trial converts, with the exact date. If you prefer paying monthly it is NOK 79 per month, with no trial.
Norwegian prices are in kroner and include VAT. Apple handles the payment and the renewal, and you cancel with one tap in the app or under Settings → Apple ID → Subscriptions. There is no weekly price and no lifetime price, and there never will be: weekly subscriptions are the single most-complained-about pattern in this category.
There is no free tier. But you set up your first rule and watch the automation actually work before you are asked to pay — charging for a setup that has not been proven is how the rest of the category earns its one-star reviews. Full terms are on the terms page (Norwegian, with an English summary).
Nothing leaves the phone
Ubrutt requires no account. Rules, sessions, the open log and the ledger live on your phone, and we have no access to them. There is no analytics tool, no crash reporter and no ad SDK in the app — not because we switched them off, but because they were never added.
The only thing that ever leaves the phone is the Makker heartbeat, and only if you invite someone: whether a session is running, when it ends, and your weekly number if you turned that on. The database has no column that could hold an app name or an intention you typed. The privacy policy (Norwegian, with an English summary) walks through every field.
Questions?
Write to support@ubrutt.app. A human answers, usually within one working day. Common questions — especially about the Shortcuts setup — are answered on the support page.