Catch the Ghost - Deep Focus 12+
Pomodoro timer, study & focus
Aeeiee, Inc.
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- Free
- Offers In-App Purchases
iPhone Screenshots
Description
Catch the Ghost™ is a revolutionary Pomodoro timer designed to promote deep focus, help you regain your humanity, and motivate you to become your best self. We turn staying off your phone into a game!
Smartphones have improved our lives in many ways, but they also distract us and reduce our attention spans. Being “always connected” and “always instantly reachable” sounds efficient, but it is antithetical to deep work, productivity, and even mental health.
Our app helps users follow peer-reviewed behavioral science for peak focus and productivity without having to think about it, by giving you freedom to try different productivity and focus strategies, and using gamification and positive reinforcement to quietly nudge your behavior towards best practices, rewiring your brain in the process.
Our DIGITAL HOURGLASS™ counts the time you spend off your phone, but doesn't show you the minutes ticking by, so it feels less stressful to focus on work. If you manage to not use your phone until the hourglass runs out, you get rewards that make you feel good and our app helps track your productivity over time.
What are ghosts? Ghosts are the biggest reward in our game. Ghosts in our app are famous historical figures, each with multiple “apparitions.” An apparition captures a key moment in the ghost's life, complete with authentic quotes and relevant artwork. As you collect all the apparitions through focus sessions, you gradually uncover the ghost’s full story. We keep their identities a mystery until the end, adding an element of surprise and anticipation as you learn. You also earn coins for every successful focus session, and lose coins for every failed focus session.
What you get upon download:
Download our app for free, sign up for a Catch the Ghost™ account, and we will generate a customized Starter Pack for you made up of 7-12 ghosts, based on your unique interests. These ghosts in total will contain about 35 apparitions, or about 17.5 hours worth of focus time. Use this Starter Pack to get a feel for what it's like to catch ghosts and see if our take on productivity is right for you. Catching more and rarer ghosts than the ones available in your Starter Pack will require a subscription.
The app will not function without you signing up for a Catch the Ghost™ account.
Subscriptions:
Monthly Subscription - For $4.99 per month, you get access to Universe where you can explore and catch our full library of Ghosts, and History where you can track your productivity over Day, Week, Month, and Year timescales. Cancel anytime.
Yearly Subscription - For $34.99 per year, a 41% discount over the monthly price, you get access to Universe where you can explore and catch our full library of ghosts and History where you can track your productivity over Day, Week, Month, and Year timescales. The first week is free for new users. Cancel anytime.
In-App Purchases:
• Buy 1000 Coins for $0.99
• Buy 5000 Coins for $3.99
• Buy 10000 Coins for $6.99
Promotional offers for new Yearly subscribers only. Your payment will be charged to your iTunes account at confirmation of purchase. Your subscription will automatically renew monthly or annually before the end of the current period. You can turn off auto-renew at any time from your Apple Subscription settings in Settings -> Apple ID -> Subscriptions. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription to that item where applicable.
Privacy Policy: https://www.aeeiee.com/privacy-policy
Terms of Service (EULA): https://www.aeeiee.com/terms-of-service
What’s New
Version 1.4.5
Whoops! It looks like our new In App Purchases weren't activated with our last build like they were supposed to be. 2nd time's a charm!
• Streak Recovery - Don't lose your motivation! If you miss a day, you can still hold on to your streak by paying in coins to recover the days you missed! Recover up to two skipped days.
• Ambience - Calm your mind, meditate, or enhance your focus with 6 new ambient sounds that you can play during a focus session: Thunderstorm, Rain, Beach at Sunrise, Raining at the Beach, Busy Cafe, and Nighttime Forest.
• Catching Ghosts offline is working again!
• Other bug fixes and performance improvements
Ratings and Reviews
Amazing App!
Pokémon for adults in the best way possible. Enjoy the design aesthetic of the pixelation, quotes, and simple and effective UI.
One UX improvement: The app doesn’t provide an incentive for focus periods of longer lengths: the coins allocated for 4 30-min sessions is more than 1 2-hour session, despite them being the same amount of time. This incentives users to use these lesser focus times, making them use their phones more to set up these shorter sessions - which is counter-intuitive to the purpose of the app.
As a solution, a coin multiplier for longer periods (contra: equal amount of coins by cutting longer periods of time to smaller sections) would enable users to focus for longer periods of time - and enhance the purported functionality of the app.
Otherwise, great job! Love it.
Developer Response ,
Thanks for your feedback! As of version 1.3, we award 4x the coins for one 120-minute timer (36 coins) as we do for one 30-minute timer (9 coins). What you were describing was 1.2.2 behavior where they were the same. Please try again on 1.3 and if that isn't working for you, let us know at aeeiee.com/support. The only incentive difference now is that running four 30-minute timers gets you four apparitions, while running one 120-minute timer just gets you one apparition. This is how we incentivize several shorter timers with breaks in-between instead of one long timer. We use gamification techniques like this to promote productivity best practices and brain well-being that help our users avoid mental fatigue and burnout.
Updated to four stars after hearing from the devs
**Update: As I hoped was true the Easter egg apparition was intended to be false. It turns out that the feature that would have marked it as being fiction hadn't rolled out yet. If after the update I feel that it's obvious that this apparition was meant to be tongue in cheek I will update to five stars. But it still rubs me wrong that some people might be able to misinterpret and think that the info was true. **
I honestly thought that I was going to be coming here to write a five star review. Because I love this app. But before I decided to come and write my review I did one more focus session and I got an Easter egg apparition for Mr. Rogers, except that it was a description of being in the fighting in Vietnam. It was written as though Fred Rogers was a soldier in Vietnam and was sharing his experience. The problem with this is that Fred Rogers never served in the military. I did see that the apparition was marked as an Easter egg and I thought maybe that meant that it wasn’t true, but I couldn’t find anything marked anywhere that it was not true. So I went ahead and unlocked all of the rest of the apparitions for Mr. Rogers. There is still nothing to indicate that the Easter egg apparition is not true. I have no idea where this whole “Mr. Rogers in Vietnam" diary entry came from, but it is pure fiction and very misleading not to have it labeled as such. It baffles me that a thirty second Google could have prevented this.
Developer Response ,
The apparition that you caught was an Easter Egg that was a wink and a nod to a decades long urban legend about Fred Rogers being a former Navy Seal or Marine Recon Sniper.
We have an “About Apparition” feature for version 1.3.1 that was delayed which would have explained via an info button ℹ️ that this quote was a joke based on that urban legend. Many of our Easter Eggs contain jokes.
We also communicated this in a response to your email to us yesterday. We hope you understand and update your review accordingly.
Ironically, as I write this, Apple is reviewing our version 1.3.1 which contains the “About Apparition” feature.
Great app!
I love that this app incentivizes not looking at my phone! I do think that getting quicker rewards in the early stages would motivate me more to run more timers. Running 10 timers just to catch my first ghost made me slack off. Overall, the user interface is very good! I love the little ghost/avatars and quotes :) keep up the good work!
App Privacy
The developer, Aeeiee, Inc., indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Linked to You
The following data may be collected and linked to your identity:
- Contact Info
- Identifiers
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Location
- Usage Data
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Aeeiee, Inc.
- Size
- 159.9 MB
- Category
- Productivity
- Compatibility
-
- iPhone
- Requires iOS 17.0 or later.
- Languages
-
English
- Age Rating
- 12+ Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content and Nudity Infrequent/Mild Mature/Suggestive Themes
- Copyright
- © 2024 Aeeiee Inc.
- Price
- Free
- In-App Purchases
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- Annual Subscription $34.99
- Monthly Subscription $4.99
- 10000 Coins $6.99
- 5000 Coins $3.99
- 1000 Coins $0.99