App blocker for iPhone and Android Put the unlock button across the room.

You could. Latch adds friction, and someone determined can get around it. The app asks you to scan the printed paper when you set it up and tells you to keep it away from your phone. If a copy gets out, print a new code from the key's page and the old one stops working. NFC stickers can't be photographed at all.

Yes, with a steps key (Latch Pro). Add one under Keys → + → Steps and choose anything from 500 to 20,000 steps. When you're locked, tap Walk to unlock, put your phone in your pocket and walk. Only steps after you tap count, so earlier walks and today's total don't. Steps keep counting with the screen off, and you're unlocked once you reach the number. It works on iPhone and Android phones that count steps, not on iPad.

Open Break glass and choose "Lost your key? End the session instead". It uses one of your three a month. Then add a new key and remove the lost one.

Any NTAG213, NTAG215 or NTAG216 sticker. They're sold online in packs for a few cents each. MIFARE Classic tags don't work with iPhone or with Latch on Android.

Not once it's locked. Latch locks a sticker with a password when it writes your key. Anyone can still tap it to unlock, but no one can change it without the password, which you can save in Apple's Passwords app or Google Password Manager.

Yes. Put one sticker or QR code in a common place, like the fridge. Each person adds it on their own phone in person: Keys → + → NFC sticker and tap it, or QR code → Scan it. Then each of you locks and unlocks on your own. Invite them from the key's page in Latch.

Not with Hard lock on. While you're locked, it can stop apps being deleted or installed, and in-app purchases too. You choose which. On Android it blocks installing apps and the Play Store, so a deleted app can't come back until you unlock.

iOS always lets you revoke an app's Screen Time access in Settings, and Latch can't stop that. While access is off nothing can be blocked, but your lock isn't over. Turn access back on and it picks up where it left off, so switching it off and on again doesn't unlock you. On Android the same goes for Latch's accessibility service.

Yes. On iPhone, turn on Hide apps instead in a profile. While you're locked, its apps disappear from your Home Screen instead of showing the block screen, and their websites stay open in Safari. Websites you add to the profile stay blocked. On Android, blocking an app never blocks its website.

Yes. On iPhone and iPad, your keys, profiles and schedules sync through iCloud. On Android, add the same key on each phone: tap the sticker under NFC sticker, or scan the code under QR code → Scan it. One key unlocks all of them, and each device locks on its own.

Latch blocks apps with Android's accessibility service instead of Screen Time. Voice commands go through Google Assistant, and one-tap locking is a Quick Settings tile. Hard lock blocks installing apps and the Play Store, but not deleting apps. Android can also lock whenever Do Not Disturb is on. There's no sync between Android phones yet, so you add the same key on each one. It needs Android 9 or later.

Yes. It can lock on a schedule, when you arrive at a place, on a schedule that only runs while you're at a place (say, weekdays 9 to 5 at the office), or from a Shortcuts automation on iPhone. On Android it can also lock whenever Do Not Disturb is on. Unlocking still takes your key, a schedule's end time, leaving a place you set to unlock, or Break glass.

On iPhone it works the way Driving Focus does: the motion chip recognises a car, and a big move wakes Latch in the background. It locks a few minutes into the drive and can unlock once you've been out of the car for a few minutes. Walking, running and cycling don't count, and there's nothing to set up outside the app. Your phone can't tell a driver from a passenger, so passengers get an "I'm a passenger" button that unlocks for the rest of the trip. On Android, Google's activity recognition notices the drive.

A lock blocks a whole profile until you scan your key. A daily limit works while you're unlocked: an app or category gets its time each day, and once that's used up only that one is blocked. Scanning your key gives it one more round of its daily time, unless you turn on No extra time. At midnight it starts over.

On iPhone, no. Apple gives Latch only opaque tokens for your apps. The "reached for" counter counts taps on the block screen, and iOS draws the app names, which Latch never stores. On Android, Latch's accessibility service sees which app is open so it can block it. That stays on the phone and is never stored or sent.

No. Latch is free with one key, three profiles and two places. Latch Pro is a single $9.99 purchase through the App Store or Google Play, and it doesn't renew.

Latch is out now on the App Store, listed as "Latch: Scan to Unlock" by Lukla Logic, for iPhone and iPad (iOS 17 and later). The Android version (Android 9 and later) is out now on Google Play.