What does each hour ask for?
Every clock hour is a lap, from midnight: 24 a day. When an hour starts, Hourlap takes the steps still to your goal, divides them by the hours left until your day end (the time your goal should be reached by), and rounds up. That number is fixed for the hour. It is never less than 200.
| The day | At | Walked | The hour asks |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7,000 by 22:00 (Free, the default) | 0:00 | 0 | 319 steps |
| 12,000 by 22:00 (a Pro goal) | 12:00 | 2,000 | 1,000 steps |
| 12,000 by 22:00 (a Pro goal) | 12:00 | 8,000 | 400 steps |
Walk ahead and every later hour asks less; fall behind and they ask more. Walk each hour’s number and you reach your goal by the day end, because each hour asks exactly its share.
What happens when an hour ends short?
The apps, websites and categories you picked lock at the top of the hour, through Apple’s Screen Time. They open again as soon as the hour under way reaches its own number. Every hour is judged at its end, on its own: an hour that ends short locks the apps, or keeps them locked, and the next hour asks its own number from zero.
Phone calls and iOS Settings are never locked, and your other apps keep working.
What happens when I reach my goal?
The hour you reach it in is done, and nothing locks until midnight. Later hours still count as laps: each asks 200 steps and is done once you walk them, but they never lock. So a morning run and nothing after is one lap of 24, not a perfect day.
What is the day end?
The time your goal should be reached by: 22:00 unless you move it, any whole hour from 1:00 to midnight, on Free and Pro alike. If the day ends below your goal, your apps stay locked until you reach it or until midnight. A day end before 18:00 works, but each hour asks for more, and the app says so.
What about the night?
Nights are quiet: Hourlap sends no reminders or lock notifications until you have walked 500 steps that day. But a night asleep misses its laps, so you wake up locked. Walk the number the morning’s lap asks, or unlock for 15 minutes to get going.
Where do the steps come from?
From your iPhone’s motion sensor and from Apple Health, which includes your Apple Watch. The Watch app counts the hour’s steps on your wrist and hands them to your iPhone before the hour ends, so a walk with the phone left on the desk still counts. iOS doesn’t let apps read Health while an iPhone is locked, so a walk on the Watch alone can show up a moment late; open Hourlap or tap Check my steps and the lock lifts once Health can be read.
What are the ways out?
- Unlock for 15 minutes. A pause over the rule: steps walked during it count toward the hour, and the apps relock at its end only if the steps are still owed.
- Take the day off. Nothing locks that day.
- Turn off Hourlap’s Screen Time access in iOS Settings, which removes every lock. Hourlap can’t prevent that, and wouldn’t if it could.
With Pro, Strict today takes the unlock and the day off away until midnight.
Free or Pro?
Free walks a 7,000-step goal and locks up to 3 apps and websites, with this week's History. Pro adds your own daily goal, from 1,000 to 50,000 steps; any number of apps, websites and whole categories; your full History: every week, month and year; Strict today: no unlocks and no days off until midnight. The day end, unlocks, days off, the Apple Watch app, widgets and both looks are everyone’s.
