Brick - Ditch Distractions 4+

Fantastic tool but App need work

I absolutely love the Brick. I have ADHD and I have tried all the app blocking tools but they were too easy to override. I have been sleeping better, less stressed, and spending significantly less time on my phone. I brick before bed, work, and if I catch myself scrolling for more than a few minutes. Just having the barrier of having to get up and walk downstairs to my fridge where my Brick is to unbrick my phone is enough of a barrier to keep me from falling into doom scrolling. It has been incredible for my time management and mental wellness.

While all these features are wonderful, since installing brick random apps get stuck on restricted. It doesn't show the blocked screen and nothing I do will allow me to access them other than removing Brick from screen time. It's a huge inconvenience because everytime I need to use that app I essentially have to disable Brick and all my stuff becomes unblocked leading to more distractions. An update to fix this issue would make the experience so much better. I love the Brick tool. The app just needs more work.

Developer Response ,

Thank you so much for the review - we’re so glad brick is making a positive difference! It sounds like screen time settings may be getting in the way of Brick working right, if you email hello@getbrick.app we’d be happy to help! We’re sorry its creating some issues

Very Satisfied Customer. IT WORKS

I am doing the rounds today reviewing this device/app everywhere I can find. I bought two Bricks a few weeks ago... and my relationship with my phone has COMPLETELY CHANGED. I know I shouldn't need this. I know there are settings and other software tools available as part of the OS's and thru third party. I know it's downright silly. But dammit IT WORKS. I have two Bricks. One is in the back passenger door pocket of my car and the other is in my work backpack where it immediately falls to the very bottom,... requiring a good amount of digging and then refilling to obtain. Countless times, every day, I pick up my phone out of complete and even unaware compulsion, only to put it back down because there's nothing "attention grabbing" accessible. It's actually become less and less... as the habit of grabbing it fades over time. I could go on and on... but if you think you might need or want this... you will not be disappointed. Also, there are specific instructions to block Safari... as it's definitely one of my wasters(since the apps are accessible via the web). Feel free to ask any questions,. I DO NOT work for Brick nor have I been given and compensation... I paid full price for my Bricks. I just wanted to provide an honest opinion form a very satisfied customer.

Please please please fix your app

This is a phenomenal concept, and when it works, it’s excellent. However - your app is borderline unusable for the newest iOS update. The app is consistently getting confused when toggling from Allowed apps to Blocked apps, (I believe this is new functionality, my brother has an earlier version and it only allowed him to block). Many times my app will revert to an earlier “version” of my block/allow settings, or the exact opposite of what I asked for. For example - many times my “No Insta For You” setting will allow me ONLY access to Instagram, rather than the opposite. The only thing that has worked thus far is deleting the setting, creating a new one (has to be a different name, if it’s the same name it will revert back to previous settings) and getting blocking/allowing everything on the first go around. If you try and adjust anything, consider yourself hosed.

For anyone who’s making a jira ticket about this: THIS IS HIGH PRIORITY. I really, really want this app to work, because when it does I truly love it. I pinky promise I will change this to 5 stars when you fix this issue, but you clearly have a memory/pointer/full-on-class-construction issue that needs to be fixed before I can recommend this to anyone.

Developer Response ,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention in such detail. It does seem as though something in the latest iOS update may have affected our app negatively, so we're looking into this to figure out as soon as we can. Could you please reach out to tj@getbrick.app so we can address this together to make sure we're aware of all the necessary fixes?