If you ever spent too long movement through endless foods about nothing, it might be advised to touch grass. It is a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, essentially telling you that you log in and go out. But one developer took the concept to the next level.
Rhys Kentish launched an iOS program last week called Touch grassWhich locks recreational programs until you literally walk outside and take a photo of grass.
“I struggled with my screen time and worked out that I would spend seven years of my life looking at my phone if I didn’t change anything,” Kentish told Techcrunch. “I wanted more friction than other solutions there, something to get me out of the house in the morning. I wanted to break the habit of reaching my phone in the morning and Doomscrolling for an hour or two before starting my day. ”
Don’t even try to cheat; Using a computer vision AI, the app can distinguish between house plants and effective outdoor grass. So, after the app rejected a photo of my monster plant, I went outside and found the closest green thing: scrub. I would argue that a bush is a grass-adjusted, but the touch grass app is hell to make you touch actual grass, so the bush was not enough.
I had a short moment of panic, looking around my city street, where I am surrounded by concrete and brick from all sides. There are many trees – a rarity in the middle of a city – but like a bush, a tree is not a grass. I had to cross the street to find a patch of grass in front of a neighbor’s house, and only then did I give access to an open Tiktok on my phone.
For Kentish, who works full time as a developer at an agency, this level of friction is the point.
“People’s reactions to it were,” haha, that’s a fun concept, “but now for some people,” haha, that’s a fun concept, but this actually helps me, “he said.
The humor in the app depends on how serious it is really about making you go out. But at the same time Kentish does not want users to touch grass after dark, when it may not be so safe to do so. The app asks to see the location of a user (which can be given as a one -time permission) so that it knows when the sun goes down in the area. Subsequently, users can set their settings to navigate how blocks will work when coming out and touching grass cannot be done.
The Freemium -App gives all users the ability to lock two programs that can only be unlocked by touching grass – but you can enable a feature that makes you pay what you want to open an application. No matter what you pay, half of the cost will be donated Rewilding Efforts in Britain, Kentish say. If you want to lock more than just two programs, you can register for $ 5.99 a month or $ 49.99 a year.
The concept of paid unlocks was in the DNA of the app since before Kentish appeared with the moving grass concept. About a year ago and a half, Kentish posted a video On Tiktok about an app he projected for himself, who handed money from his control account to his savings every time he opened Tiktok. But the idea of touching grass is a little more pleasing – and fun – than something that requires you to link your bank account.
Since its launch on Friday, the app has been downloaded about 50,000 times. As an independent developer, Kentish operates the application on his own, but he said he is not opposed to investors’ interest. The funding could help him develop Android -App and market the application beyond his own social media.
