I sometimes think Apple should ditch its fancy aluminium iPhone enclosures and instead make them out of bees. Not only would this make for a more vibrant iPhone Pro than even the orange model, but also it’d mean I’d be far less likely to pick up my iPhone and waste time with it. On account, you know, of the enclosure being made of bees.
You might ask, “What about Screen Time?” Nope. No good. It’s far, far too easy to get past that system, ignore it entirely, and spend 17 consecutive hours doomscrolling. Bees it is, then. However, you might add, “What about Pause Point, then?” At which point I myself would pause and look thoughtful, because Pause Point is a really good idea.
Alas, Pause Point isn’t on iPhone – it’s coming to Android. And it’s not really Google’s idea – it’s just something the company has pilfered from elsewhere and put its own spin on. Which, honestly, good. Because Pause Point looks like it’ll be really useful. And I should know, because I have used similar systems on my iPhone in the past, and they’re very effective. But Google’s is better.
Get to the point
Pause Point was revealed last week, moments before the horribly named Googlebook, a laptop that looked at Apple’s ‘waggle the cursor to make the pointer bigger’ feature and decided what people really wanted was for that action to make Gemini take over the entire screen instead. Me, I prefer Pause Point.
I’d probably have called this feature Are You Sure You Want To Do That? Because that’s basically what it’s all about. (This is also why Google’s marketing team doesn’t pay me the big bucks.) The idea is that you define distracting apps, and rather than set a timer that you’ll immediately ignore, you leave it to your phone to guilt you into doing something more meaningful.
There are various options in Google’s hierarchy of guilt (possibly not the setting’s actual name). One makes you take a deep breath, presumably hoping additional oxygen reaching your brain will bring you to your senses and stop you spending the rest of the day scrolling TikTok. Another has you flick through images of loved ones, because, hey, you could be spending time with them rather than wasting it playing stupid games, you monster!
Pause for effect
Naturally, there’s an option for people who aren’t so easily guilted: a phone reset. Pause Point will refuse to play ball until you restart your device. By which point, if you’re anything like me, you may well have forgotten what the distracting thing you fancied doing was in the first place.
None of this is new. I’ve used One Sec before, which is a similar system for doorslamming time-waster apps at the moment you attempt to open them. On iPhone, Unhabit does much the same for websites – and there are similar options for Android. I’ve also mulled over Brick, which locks apps until you donk the thing with your phone. But all of these come with a level of cost, friction and faff that ultimately leads to me thinking “nah”. And then wasting loads of time.
Pause Point seems much smarter. It’s built in. It’s flexible. And it’s not a blunt instrument. Frankly, I’d long been surprised one of the ‘big two’ hadn’t directly integrated this kind of thing into their operating systems. And I rather hope the fruit company has its photocopier out, because Apple Pause is now the number one feature I want to see at WWDC 2027. But, uh, don’t worry about the ‘waggle cursor to drench the screen in AI’ thing, Apple. I’m good without that.
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