Stare: A Sitting Practice

• 

  Choose a sitting and put the phone down. Free durations: 2, 5 and 10 minutes.

• 

  A private photo diary of time spent away from the scroll. Sample photographs shown.

• 

  One rear-camera photograph when your sitting finishes. Keep it, or let it go.

• 

  Leave a moment for a friend. They can sit and reply whenever they are ready.

• 

  Two places, one shared memory. Both photographs stay together in your diaries.

• 

  Share a photo or short film only when both people agree.

• 

  STARE app icon — original uncropped 1024 × 1024 PNG.

• 

  Paired memory in STARE — 1179 × 2556 screenshot without a device frame. Sample photographs.

Use your phone less. Keep a little more of life.

STARE is an iPhone app designed to help you spend less time using your phone. It gives you a simple reason to put it down: a quiet sitting, one photograph of the world around you, and a memory worth keeping.

What it does

Choose a sitting, set the phone down, and leave STARE in the foreground. Nothing is photographed while you sit. At the end, the rear camera captures one photograph of your surroundings, never a selfie. Keep it in your diary or discard it. Leaving the app ends the sitting; there is no score or streak to lose.

• Sit for free: choose 2, 5 or 10 minutes. You can begin without an account and keep a local, offline diary.
• Keep a photo diary: browse a contact sheet, open photographs, and add personal notes to the moments you kept.
• Leave a moment: send a kept photograph to a friend or create a personal invitation link. They can sit and reply when they are ready; the two photographs become a shared memory.
• Sit together live: take a quiet moment at the same time as a friend, wherever you both are. Initiating a live invitation is a Pro feature; accepting one is free.
• Share by choice: export a photograph or a short paired film. Sharing a paired memory requires both people's permission.
• See changes in phone use: an optional, free Screen Time comparison shows the percentage change in time in other apps, excluding STARE. Usage stays inside Apple's on-device reporting system. Results require sufficient history and describe a change; they do not prove that STARE caused it.
• Choose your boundaries: an optional city label and one daily reminder at your chosen time. Friends' stares follow your own sitting in a finite feed. No likes, view counts, streaks, followers or leaderboards.

Exactly what is paid

STARE Pro adds three things:

1. Longer solo sittings: 20, 30 and 60 minutes.
2. Initiating STARE Together: invite a friend to a live shared sitting. Your friend can accept for free.
3. Full-resolution diary prints: choose moments, a paper style and a title, then export high-resolution images or a printable PDF. Previewing the paper is free.

The core sitting, diary, notes, asynchronous moments and phone-use comparison remain free. Existing memories remain accessible if a subscription ends.

Pro is available for US $1.99/month, $9.99/year, or $13.99 as a one-time lifetime purchase, as displayed in the US storefront on 30 September 2026. Local prices vary. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled. RevenueCat powers the offerings, purchases, restoration and the shared stare_pro entitlement. The app offers Pro after you have kept your first sitting, through a relevant feature or Settings.

The annual plan includes a two-week free trial for eligible new subscribers, available in all 175 regions. Enroll September 30–October 14, 2026; then the local annual price applies ($9.99/year in the US). The subscription auto-renews unless cancelled.

How I built it

STARE uses Swift and SwiftUI, AVFoundation for rear-camera capture, and Family Controls / Device Activity for the private Screen Time comparison. Supabase provides authentication, Postgres with row-level security, private photo storage and Edge Functions. RevenueCat connects the paid products to the Pro entitlement. Universal links connect a shared moment on the web to the iPhone app.

The design challenge

An app about less phone use should make room for leaving. The hardest problem was making a quiet interface feel intentional and understandable. The design uses black, warm off-white type, photographs and very little interface chrome. A sitting replaces the feed; the photograph arrives after the time away. Shared photographs meet only after each person has taken their own moment.

The business model follows the same idea: longer quiet time, a shared sitting and a physical keepsake are worth paying for without selling attention or adding an endless feed.

What I learned

Restraint still needs explanation. A minimal duration control must make its paid options understandable. A private usage comparison must exclude time spent in STARE and say when the history is incomplete. A shared memory needs consent from both people before it becomes an export. These details mattered as much as the visual design.

Building in public

• Quiet minutes become a photo diary
• The core loop: open STARE, then put the phone down
• Leave a moment for someone
• The Shipaton submission

Try STARE

Download STARE on the App Store. Version 1.0.7 is now available on the App Store, as of October 1, 2026. No adoption, revenue or causal screen-time reduction figures are claimed here.

Built With

• avfoundation
• postgresql
• revenuecat
• supabase
• swift
• swiftui