Health, home and travel decision
PushLock
A technical user can build a working local prototype (pose detection, earned-time accounting, blocker UI) but reproducing PushLock's full App Store behavior and OS-level app-blocking/entitlements on iOS is limited and may not be achievable without platform-level support.
View on the App Store↗$2.08/mo
$25/yr
Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off144 h to build
$0/mo3 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 5 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All PushLock alternatives, with the arithmetic →
What a replacement has to do
- User selects apps to protect; app verifies physical reps via on-device pose detection; app grants timed unlocks and tracks usage locally; UI to allocate earned minutes to selected apps.
What it still won’t have
- App Store polish, brand recognition, and user review base
- Tight OS-level blocking behavior possible only with private entitlements or MDM (may not be reproducible)
- Cross-device sync and cloud backups (not scoped)
- Long-term trust, analytics and marketing the existing app provides
What remains hard
- Execution quality
Smoother live skeleton. Pose tracking lines now follow your body in real time during push-ups, squats, and planks.
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 5 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a single-developer iOS app (Swift, SwiftUI) that implements 'exercise to earn screen time' for one device: core features — onboarding, select apps to protect (UI only, no private entitlements), set unlock ratio, integrate on-device pose verification using Vision/MobileNet or an open-source pose model, local earned-time accounting with Core Data, blocking overlay within your app that simulates blocked apps and lets users spend earned minutes, local notifications and timers, tests for pose-detection logic and time accounting, error handling for camera permission failures and storage errors. Out of scope: trying to bypass App Store restrictions or implementing actual OS-level blocking via private APIs or MDM, cloud sync, multi-device support.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 3 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 3
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productPushLock: Unlock Apps - App Store
- open sourceSelfControl — GitHub
- open sourcecurbox-android — GitHub
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
