iPhone · free to start

Miss it twice and Emberling makes the habit smaller.

Twenty minutes becomes ten. Miss again and it becomes five — the floor. Three days running and the twenty comes back on its own.

Download on the App Store See how it works

Five habits free Seven days of Pro No score, anywhere

9:41

TODAY 3 of 6

Wake · 06:30

MORNING

10-minute morning walk · 10 min

Write morning pages 08:30 · 5 min

Down to 5 minutes — just showing up. That still counts, fully.

EVENING

Read 10 pages before bed after dinner · 21:30 · 10 pages

PAUSED · 1

Ten slow breaths at your desk since 26 Jul Resume

Paused habits don't count against you, and nothing restarts on its own.

Wind down · 22:30

Home Grid Chat Apps You

Morning pages, resized to five minutes by the app — with the sentence explaining why, in amber, never red.

01 The mechanic

It decides the habit is the wrong size, and changes it.

Full size

Sit and breathe 07:00 · 20 min

Missed twice, running cold

Sit and breathe 07:00 · 10 min

I made it smaller so it survives — two misses this week.

Two more, two days later

Sit and breathe 07:00 · 5 min · the floor

Down to 5 minutes — just showing up. That still counts, fully.

Three completions in a row and it goes back to 20, in one step. Five is the floor: nothing ever drops below it, and nothing quietly goes out.

The exact rules

Two consecutive misses, on a habit already running cold. One bad day shrinks nothing, and off-days are never misses.
Never twice within two days. Twenty down to five takes a fortnight of going cold, not a bad weekend.
A size you set yourself holds. Emberling stands down and does not overrule you.
It never grows a habit on its own. After seven full days it asks; the other button says Not now.
Nothing pauses itself. Resting is offered when a habit burns very low, at most once a fortnight, and only you accept it.
You never see a score. The number behind all of this appears nowhere in the app.

02 The Morning Post

At six it reads your inbox and writes you a paper.

Your calendar sets the shape of the day; your inbox supplies up to five things that actually need you. One tap files a headline into today.

EMBER READ YOUR MORNING FOR YOU

The Morning Post

MONDAY · AUGUST 3 · 3 HEADLINES

A full Monday — standup at ten, Sana at two, the dentist at four. Nothing after that.

— Ember, reading at 6:12 this morning

TODAY · 3 MEETINGS

10:00–10:30 Standup

14:00–15:00 Sana — quarterly review

16:00 Dentist

№1

Check in for Friday's flight to Lisbon

Check-in opened this morning and closes twenty-four hours before you fly.

British Airways · Online check-in is now open

ADDED TO TODAY

№2

Pay the electricity bill before Tuesday

Due the day after tomorrow, and last month's went in late.

Octopus Energy · Your August bill is ready

ADD TO TODAY · 13:00

№3

Read Sana's brief before the two o'clock

She sent it at eleven last night and you are meeting her about it today.

Sana Iqbal · Draft for tomorrow

ADD TO TODAY · 12:30

READ-ONLY · EMBER NEVER SENDS OR DELETES MAIL

Reads Gmail envelopes — sender, subject, date, snippet — twelve at most, plus today's calendar. Message bodies never leave Google.
Prints A day-line, your meetings, then nought to five headlines. Never six. Papers are kept seven days, then deleted.
Never Sends, replies, archives or deletes. Only two Gmail operations are wired into the app at all, and an operation that is not there cannot be called.

Gmail

Google Calendar

Apple Health

Todoist

03 Sunday, and the first of the month

A week in three figures. A month with a letter attached.

Both compare you only to yourself — the median of your own recent weeks, never a target.

SUNDAY, SIX IN THE EVENING

The Sunday Edition

JULY 27 – AUGUST 2 · THREE FIGURES

finished usual 18

190

min moved usual 140

pages usual 40

Three figures, never four — and one section headed One thing for next week. When nothing needs changing, it says exactly that.

THE FIRST, SIX IN THE EVENING

July, the Special Issue

A MONTH, AND A LETTER FROM YOUR EMBERLING

active days

finished

longest run

“The reading held all month. The walking came back after the middle week, at half size, and stayed.”

The letter may not introduce a number the month did not contain, and it is rejected outright if it uses the word streak.

04 The companion

You hatch a phoenix, and you give it a name.

Ten stages, from Emberling to Radiant, on experience that only ever goes up. Nothing you do, or fail to do, takes any of it away.

The Aurora scene — green and violet light across a night sky

9:41

Good morning, Krish

The Emberling chick — a cream chick with a small flame on its head — sitting in the Aurora scene

Ember Level 10 — top level, every scene unlocked 10

STEPS

9,284

usually ~8,135

ACTIVE MIN

usually ~31

Right on your rhythm.

TODAY 5 of 6

Wake · 06:30

90 min deep work 09:30 · work

Home Grid Chat Apps You

Steps and active minutes come from Apple Health, set against your own usual — never a target.

How warm a habit is

Every habit carries a temperature, folded fresh from the last twenty-eight days. The band is what the app says out loud; the number is shown nowhere.

Bright — the only band a grow offer can come from 80–100

Steady — where every new habit starts 50–79

Low — running cold; the only band a shrink can fire in 25–49

Resting — a status you chose, never derived below 25

full day +12 small version +8 first miss −15 each miss after −20

Showing up small earns two thirds of a full day. That is the whole argument of the app, as a number.

Five worlds it can live in

Earned, not sold. Each opens at a level, and every scene past the Hearth needs Pro as well — there is no way to buy a scene, or a level, with money.

The Hearth scene — a warm fireside room — **Hearth**Level 1 · free

The Dawn scene — a shore at first light — **Dawn**Level 3 · Pro

The Campfire scene — a mountainside fire at dusk — **Campfire**Level 5 · Pro

The Night scene — a lantern-lit library of curved bookshelves, a ladder and a round rug, under a starlit window — **Night**Level 7 · Pro

The Aurora scene — green and violet light across the sky — **Aurora**Level 9 · Pro

The Ember Shop

Twelve things to wear, four slots, priced in Embers — and every habit you keep drops three. There is no way to buy Embers with money, so the only way to dress your companion is to have shown up.

Hats

A ring of small flowers — **Flower crown** 40

A striped conical party hat — **Party hat** 110

Outfits

Shoes

A pair of knitted socks — **Cozy socks** 40

A pair of sturdy boots — **Sturdy boots** 110

Glasses

Star-shaped novelty glasses — **Star glasses** 110

05 The letters

A sealed envelope in its wing, every morning.

366 lines, written by hand — one for every day of a leap year. No model writes them, and nothing goes over the wire to fetch one.

“You came back. That's the whole skill.”

Your Emberling

“Two minutes counts. It always counted.”

Your Emberling

“I kept your place. Sit down.”

Your Emberling

“I have no advice today. I just wanted to say hello.”

Your Emberling

“You. Today. That's enough of a plan for me.”

Your Emberling

06 The grid

Your year in squares. A miss is never red.

There is no red value anywhere in the app's palette, in either theme, and a test fails the build if one appears.

full size the small version — it still counts not today

Write morning pages

Morning walk

Read before bed

Weeks eleven and twelve are where morning pages went cold, shrank, and came back at half size — the lighter squares.

07 Pricing

Free is a real product. Pro gives it more room.

Free

$0 and it stays that way

Five habits, with the shrink and restore mechanic on all of them
A letter every morning, and the front page of the Morning Post
Five messages a day of chat with your companion
One connected app, the Hearth scene, and every wardrobe item you earn
Your whole history — your own past is never gated

Download free

7 days free

Emberling Pro

$9.99 a month, or $49.99 a year

Unlimited habits and unlimited chat
The whole Morning Post, unfolded — not just the front page
Every scene you have reached the level for
Gmail, Calendar, Health and Todoist connected at once
Deeper insights — mood against habits, and the letter in the monthly Special Issue

Start your free week

Seven days free on both plans. Auto-renews until cancelled; cancel any time in Settings. Regional pricing applies where the App Store offers it.

It will make the habit smaller before it lets it go out.

Five habits, a letter every morning, and seven days of everything else.

Download on the App Store iPhone · iOS 17 and later