Roots: Screen Time Control

The whole point of Roots is to give an accurate picture of screen time. But it fails at the most basic task , it counts background activity as screen time. For example, WhatsApp shows up with hours of usage even when I haven’t opened it. This completely skews the data and defeats the purpose of using the app. Please fix this. Accurate tracking should be table stakes. EDIT: After few months of using it with paid version, I am unable to find how to add a website to be blocked. All they provide are the current apps or visited sites

Regular iOS screentime doesn’t actually provide a strong enough restriction.

Finally I can set my intentions and stick with them. Can’t wait for a Mac version!

I love Roots. That’s all I have to say it’s great and it really helps me

This app can’t be uninstalled without a third party app to assist.

I have a habit of picking up my phone to aimlessly scroll and roots has really helped me set screen times that I can’t easily bypass and periods of time that I cannot use certain apps. I am loving it!

I would love to see a widget of the roots tree on my Home Screen. It would be a nice visual reminder of my progress and the tree is pretty

I just wanted to say thank you so much for creating this app!!! About a month ago I filled out the form within the app for reduced payment (reasoning being saving up for college and I don’t have tons of spare cash for anything right now), and I got it! I think I pay 2.99 a month right and it’s so incredible. I wasn’t sure if it would help at first but I’ve been able to limit myself with the help of this app. I haven’t been able to make a significant reduction yet but I’m trying hard. I can feel it getting easier as the weeks go on. I used to spend maybe 5+? hours on TikTok. Now I spend around 2. I can feel myself not itching for it and getting anxious over it. I hope one day I’ll be able to get by without any withdrawal at all. Again, thank you so much for this app and I recommend you get it- this is going to save you in more ways than you can even begin to understand. Hoping to fully reconnect with earth at some point, thanks again

Helping with self discipline, and staying off social media. Also helping me wind down in the evenings with the different daily limits it has.

I don't tend to write reviews for products, but I thought this one deserved a shout for generously allowing me a free year subscribed to it, which allowed me to use all of the features in this app to their full effect. In addition to in-depth customization, the app does just what it says: it locks you out of those "problem" apps that divide your attention, whichever those might be for you. Its functions are as strict or as loose as desired, allowing the user to stay in control. If you're one of those people who is almost certainly going to try to get around a block, there's a mode for that; if you're more like me and just need a gentle nudge in the right direction sometimes, but otherwise want to retain the right to override Roots if you need, there's a way to do that, too. Overall, you make it as easy or as hard to access the apps as you want, with specific settings and notifications up to you, which is the way I think that blockers like this should be designed. The last thing I wanted was an app that would be too overbearing, intrusive or irritating, as I've unfortunately found some other focus-oriented apps to be. One additional thing I appreciated was the screentime tracking being fully-customizable, and discounting apps you've whitelisted. This is something that isn't (to my knowledge) possible within Apple's default screentime tracker, which seems to simply log everything. As I am currently living in a different country from my family and am in a committed long-distance relationship, keeping up with my relatives, partner and friends simply isn't that feasible without using my phone, and sometimes I use it for several hours to that end. Roots allowed me to automatically keep track of how much time I was truly spending on "problem" apps, without unnecessarily penalizing me for using basic features like calling or messaging a loved one. I reckon this would also be handy for those who need to use a particular app for work, or who listen to music/podcasts in the background while doing other tasks, and don't find it that helpful to be told that they've been on their phone for four hours that day as a result. Keeping those small caveats in mind, my phone usage has decreased over 75%, and now averages under an hour per day. The only reason I don't think I'll be continuing to use Roots is that the way I've used my phone has changed a fair bit, thanks to the app. I have simply reached a point where I don't think I need a blocker any longer... which I suppose should be the goal, after all! So, thank you for that, and for helping me to take some of my time back. Highly recommend the product, and many thanks again for the free trial!