How ANKOR compares
Three ways people try to put the phone down. Here is the honest difference.
Compared to Brick and Bloom
Both are physical objects that block apps. The difference is what happens the other 23 hours a day.
ANKOR
Brick & Bloom
To start
Set your phone down
Tap the puck or card
To stop
Runs out on its own
Tap it again
When not in use
A dock on your wall
Loose in a drawer or bag
Made to be
Part of the room
A gadget you keep out of sight
What it is
A place, and a boundary
A blocker, nothing else
Compared to Screen Time
iOS already has a way to limit apps. It rarely holds. A limit is a prompt on the same screen you are trying to leave, one tap away from Ignore Limit.
ANKOR is not a setting. It is a place across the room. You do not override a wall dock by tapping something. You have to physically get up.
Compared to a lockbox
A lockbox solves the same problem by taking the phone away. Timed, mechanical, out of sight until the timer runs out.
ANKOR keeps the phone in view, on the wall, in the room you are in. It is a boundary, not a confiscation, and unlike a box in a drawer, it is something you would not mind people seeing.
None of these are about willpower.
Brick, Bloom, Screen Time, and lockboxes all work by making the phone harder to use. ANKOR works by giving it somewhere to be instead.