Should you’ve ever spent method too lengthy scrolling by way of infinite feeds about nothing, you might have been suggested to the touch grass. It’s a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, principally telling you to sign off and go outdoors. However one developer took the idea to the following stage.
Rhys Kentish launched an iOS app final week known as Contact Grass, which locks distracting apps till you actually stroll outdoors and take a photograph of grass.
“I struggled with my screen time and worked out that I’d spend seven years of my life looking down at my phone if I didn’t change something,” Kentish advised TechCrunch. “I wanted more friction than other solutions out there, something to get me out of the house in the morning. I wanted to break the habit of reaching for my phone in the morning and doomscrolling for an hour or two before starting my day.”
Don’t even strive dishonest; utilizing a pc imaginative and prescient AI, the app can distinguish between home vegetation and precise out of doors grass. So, after the app rejected a photograph of my Monstera plant, I went outdoors and located the closest inexperienced factor: a bush. I might argue {that a} bush is grass-adjacent, however the Contact Grass app is hellbent on making you contact precise grass, so the bush was not enough.
I had a short second of panic, wanting round my city road, the place I’m surrounded by concrete and brick on all sides. There are many bushes — a rarity in the midst of a metropolis — however like a bush, a tree isn’t grass. I needed to cross the road to discover a patch of grass in entrance of a neighbor’s home, and solely then was I granted entry to open TikTok on my telephone.
For Kentish, who works full time as an app developer at an company, this stage of friction is the purpose.
“People’s reactions to it have been, ‘Haha, that’s a funny concept,’ but now for some people it’s, ‘Haha, that’s a funny concept, but this is actually helping me,’” he mentioned.
The humor within the app is contingent on how critical it’s about actually making you go outdoors. However on the similar time, Kentish doesn’t need customers to the touch grass after darkish, when it is probably not as secure to take action. The app asks to see a person’s location (which will be granted as a one-time permission) in order that it is aware of when the solar units within the space. Then, customers can customise their settings to navigate how blocks will work when going outdoors and touching grass isn’t possible.
The freemium app offers all customers the power to lock two apps, which might solely be unlocked by touching grass — however you possibly can allow a function that makes you pay what you wish to open an app. It doesn’t matter what you pay, half of the price shall be donated to rewilding efforts within the U.Ok., Kentish says. If you wish to lock extra than simply two apps, you possibly can join $5.99 per thirty days or $49.99 per 12 months.
The idea of paid unlocks has been within the app’s DNA since earlier than the Kentish got here up with the touching grass idea. A few 12 months and a half in the past, Kentish posted a video on TikTok about an app he designed for himself, which transferred cash from his checking account to his financial savings each time he opened TikTok. However the thought of touching grass is a little more palatable — and humorous — than one thing that requires you to hyperlink your checking account.
Since its launch on Friday, the app has been downloaded about 50,000 occasions. As an unbiased developer, Kentish is working the app on his personal, however he mentioned he isn’t against curiosity from buyers. The funding may assist him develop an Android app and market the app past his personal social media accounts.
