How it works
One · Pick a sidekick
Six characters, each with a lantern and a name you give it. It is the one thing on the screen that reacts to how your day is going — the light dims as the minutes run down, and nothing ever tells you off.
Two · Shield what eats the day
Choose the apps yourself, on your own phone, using Apple’s own Screen Time picker. Questing never learns which ones they are — iOS hands it a sealed token and a count, and that is all there is.
Three · Go and do something
A thousand steps. A fifteen-minute workout. Twenty mindful minutes. Your phone measures it, our ledger prices it, and the minutes come back. Nothing inside the app earns you time — that is the point.
| Quest | What counts it | Pays |
|---|---|---|
| Walk 1,000 steps | Motion & Fitness, with Apple Health as a second opinion | +20 minutes |
| 15 minute workout | Anything your phone or watch logs to Health | +20 minutes |
| 20 mindful minutes | Mindful minutes written to Health | +12 minutes |
Why not just use Screen Time?
| Screen Time | App blockers | Questing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| When the limit hits | A button that says Ignore | Friction, until you turn it off | Your sidekick, and a way to earn more |
| Where more time comes from | You raising the limit | You giving up | Walking, workouts, mindful minutes |
| What it feels like | A parental control you set for yourself | Willpower with extra steps | A game you play outside |
| Who decides a minute is earned | — | — | Our server, after your phone measures it |
What Questing never sees
- Your screen time. It is measured on your phone by Apple’s framework and it never leaves it — not to us, not to a squad, not to a parent. There is no endpoint on our server that would accept it.
- Which apps you shielded. Apple’s picker returns a sealed token, and there is no API on any platform that turns one back into an app name. You can know which apps, or you can block them. Questing blocks them.
- Your name, your email, your location. Sign in with Apple is the only way in, your account is a random identifier, and the only name in the product is the one you gave a cartoon character.
- Anything sold to anyone. No advertising SDK, no third-party analytics, no tracking across other companies’ apps. Questing is paid for by the people who subscribe to it.
Questions
Does it really block apps, or just nag me?
It really blocks them. Questing uses Apple’s Screen Time API, the same machinery behind iOS’s own restrictions, so a shielded app does not open. What you get instead is your sidekick and the distance to the next quest.
What does it cost?
The app is free, and so is everything the product is about: shielding apps, every quest, squads and streaks. Questing Plus is $7.99 a month or $44.99 a year after a 14-day trial, and adds a 60-minute unlock once a day, four streak saves a month, a weekly report for a parent, and up to three sidekicks. It never sells a higher earning cap.
How many minutes can I actually earn?
Up to 60 a day from quests, on top of the daily budget you set yourself — anything from 15 minutes to three hours. The cap exists so that a long walk cannot buy a whole day back; three thousand steps reaches it.
Is it on other phones?
No, and there cannot be a like-for-like version. The shield is built on Apple’s Screen Time API, and nothing equivalent exists elsewhere that works without handing an app far more control over the device than Questing should ever have.
Can I use it with my child?
A guardian can be linked, and the link is made from the child’s own device rather than the parent’s. What a parent sees is which quests were finished this week and the minutes those paid — never screen time, never which apps, never a balance.
What stops me deleting the app when it gets inconvenient?
Nothing we can build: deleting an app removes its shield, and no third-party app can refuse its own deletion. Questing shows you how to bind that yourself, in iOS Settings, behind a passcode — the same shape as every other commitment in the app.