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If you ’ve ever drop way too long scrolling through endless feeds about nothing , you may have been advised to touch grass . It ’s a tongue - in - cheek proposition , basically telling you to lumber off and go alfresco . But one developer took the concept to the next level .
Rhys Kentish establish an iOS app last week calledTouch Grass , which shut away distracting apps until you literally walk outside and take a photo of dope .
“ I struggled with my screen time and ferment out that I ’d spend seven years of my life looking down at my phone if I did n’t commute something , ” Kentish told TechCrunch . “ I want more detrition than other solutions out there , something to get me out of the household in the dawn . I want to bust the use of make for my phone in the morning anddoomscrollingfor an hour or two before begin my twenty-four hour period . ”
Do n’t even try cheating ; using a computer vision AI , the app can distinguish between business firm plant and genuine out-of-door dope . So , after the app rejected a photo of my Monstera flora , I went outside and notice the nearest green thing : a bush . I would fence that a bush is grass - adjacent , but the Touch Grass app is hellbent on make believe you refer existent grass , so the bush was not sufficient .
I had a brief moment of affright , looking around my urban street , where I ’m surrounded by concrete and brick on all sides . There are plenty of tree diagram — a oddity in the midsection of a metropolis — but like a bush , a Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree is not grass . I had to cross the street to find a plot of land of locoweed in front of a neighbor ’s house , and only then was I granted admittance to open TikTok on my phone .
For Kentish , who works full time as an app developer at an government agency , this level of friction is the point .
“ masses ’s reactions to it have been , ‘ Haha , that ’s a risible construct , ’ but now for some people it ’s , ‘ Haha , that ’s a funny conception , but this is actually helping me , ’ ” he said .
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The humour in the app is contingent upon on how serious it is about really making you go outside . But at the same metre , Kentish does n’t require users to touch grass after dark , when it may not be as safe to do so . The app asks to see a user ’s localisation ( which can be give as a one - clock time permission ) so that it knows when the sunshine sets in the expanse . Then , drug user can customize their setting to navigate how blocks will work when last outside and touching eatage is n’t viable .
The freemium app give all user the ability to lock two apps , which can only be unlocked by touch on grass — but you could enable a feature that makes you yield what you require to open an app . No matter what you pay , half of the cost will be donated torewildingefforts in the U.K. , Kentish says . If you want to lock more than just two apps , you could sign up for $ 5.99 per month or $ 49.99 per twelvemonth .
The concept of paid unlocks has been in the app ’s DNA since before Kentish came up with the touching grass conception . About a yr and a one-half ago , Kentishposted a videoon TikTok about an app he designed for himself , which reassign money from his checking account to his preservation every time he spread TikTok . But the idea of have-to doe with sess is a bit more toothsome — and funny — than something that requires you to connect your bank accounting .
Since its launching on Friday , the app has been download about 50,000 times . As an sovereign developer , Kentish is running the app on his own , but he said he is n’t opposed to interest from investor . The support could help him develop an Android app and market the app beyond his own societal medium accounts .
