1. You choose what gets shielded

On first run you pick two sets of apps: the ones that should earn you credit (your Bible app, your prayer app) and the ones that should be shielded until you have credit to spend. Both pickers are Apple's own Family Controls screens. Your choices come back to Firstfruits as opaque tokens - the app is told "the thing you selected" and never which app that is. That is an iOS guarantee, not a promise we are making.

2. Reading earns credit, automatically

Firstfruits does not ask you to start a session, and it does not want to replace your Bible app. It registers thresholds with Apple's DeviceActivity service against the app you chose, and iOS tells it when the accumulated foreground time for that day crosses one. The thresholds are 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 40 and 50 minutes - 8 of them, so 8 credits is the most a single day can produce.

The gaps widen on purpose. The first six credits arrive every five minutes; the last two take ten minutes each. A single long sitting should not be able to bank the whole day and make tomorrow optional.

There is also a timer inside Firstfruits for reading on paper or praying with the phone face down: every 5 minutes it runs earns one credit, against the same daily cap.

3. Credit unlocks time

One credit buys 15 minutes by default, and you can set the rate to 15, 20 or 30 minutes in Settings. At the most generous setting, a full day of 8 credits is 240 minutes - and you would have had to spend 50 minutes in Scripture to get there.

4. The emergency exit is not a punishment

If you genuinely need your phone and have no credit, an emergency unlock lifts the shield for 30 minutes, right away. It is in plain sight, it does not cost credit, and it does not break your streak. An app that locks you out of your own phone in a real emergency is not a spiritual discipline, it is a liability.

5. Everything resets at 4:00 AM

Unspent credit does not carry over. The day starts at 4:00 AM local time - late enough that a night owl's reading still counts toward the day they think of as today, early enough that the reset is never something you watch happen.

What it never does

• No account, no server, no network requests. There is nothing to sign into and nothing to sync, so there is nothing for anyone to leak. See the privacy page.
• No ads, no subscription, no in-app purchases of any kind. Scripture and prayer are never behind a paywall - and most apps in this category are not free in that sense.
• No rating prompt, ever.
• No monitoring, no reports, no accountability partner. Firstfruits cannot tell anyone what you did, because it cannot tell itself what you read - only that the app you chose was open.

What it cannot do

• iPhone and iPad only, iOS 17 or later. The Family Controls machinery it stands on does not exist on Android.
• It cannot see inside your Bible app, so it counts minutes, not chapters. Leaving the app open on a table counts. It is a rhythm, not an examination.
• It cannot stop a determined person from removing the shield in iOS Settings. Nothing here is a lock on your behalf against your will.

Free, no account, nothing sent anywhere. Firstfruits on the App Store - iPhone, iOS 17 or later.

Originally published at getfirstfruits.app/how-it-works.