How MoveFirst works
MoveFirst turns the apps you open without thinking into something you decide to open. Here is the whole loop, with nothing hidden.
Choosing what stays locked
On first run you pick the apps that should be held back — the ones you open on reflex rather than on purpose. The picker is Apple's own, and it hands MoveFirst an unreadable token rather than a list of names, so the app can keep those apps locked without ever learning which ones they are. Because it cannot see them, it cannot quietly leave your banking app out for you: set-up asks you to keep banking, maps and your wallet outside the selection. You can change the selection whenever you like, and nothing else on your phone is touched.
Opening the day with the camera
Ten exercises are counted by the front camera: push-ups, squats, sit-ups, jumping jacks, a plank, jump squats, lunges, high knees, mountain climbers and a one-foot balance. The plank and the one-foot balance are counted in seconds; the rest in reps. Counting happens live on the phone using Apple's Vision framework — each frame is read as it arrives and discarded straight away. No video is recorded, stored or sent. If the count is wrong you can correct it by hand, but only up to two above what the camera saw, and never up from zero.
Opening the day without the camera
The camera is never the only way in. A step target of 8,000 steps a day is read from Apple Health, and if Health does not answer, this phone's own motion sensor supplies its steps. Or you name up to three places yourself — the gym, the pool, the forest loop — and your phone being there for thirty continuous minutes opens the day. Location shows the phone was there, not what you did. Both routes count exactly as much as a camera session, because a way in that counts for less is not really a way in.
One session, then the day is open
Your apps are locked at the start of every day. Nothing accumulates and nothing is stored up: the day is either open or it is not. One qualifying session opens it, and access then runs until the first of three boundaries — the daily limit you set, the start of your no-go hours, or midnight. Then the next day starts locked again, and you never have to remember to switch anything back on.
Rest days, no-go hours and the emergency unlock
Five moving days a week means two rest days. You can see them from Monday, before you need them, and taking one opens your apps straight away. They do not carry over into the next week. No-go hours are off until you turn them on; when they are on, your apps stay locked during that window even if you moved. And there is one emergency unlock per commitment, counted and shown — it is the only thing that overrides both no-go hours and the daily limit.
It ends
You choose two weeks, 30 days or 90. On the last day you see what you did and choose whether to keep going, change it, or stop; the period you chose does not renew itself. Stopping a session early still counts what you did, and after a missed week the next one simply starts again. There are no streaks to break and no counter of failures.
The App Store link is being confirmed. See how MoveFirst works below.