Cubi Hands

Kid Mode & App Lock for iPhone

Hand over your phone.
Keep your peace of mind.

Your child asks for “just five minutes.” Cubi Hands turns five seconds of setup into a safe, time-limited playground: only the apps you allow, nothing deleted, nothing bought — and when time is up, the phone locks itself and comes back.

Coming soon to the App StoreiPhone & iPad · iOS 17+See how it works

Free core features · One-time Pro unlock · No subscription

  • No account
  • No server
  • No tracking
  • Built on Apple Screen Time

Session Started with one tap

Shield No deleting · no buying

T−1 min Gentle heads-up

Three steps, five seconds

Set it once. Then it is one tap, every time.

Make a profile

Pick the handful of apps your child may open and how long the session lasts. One profile per child, with their own emoji and time limit.

Tap start, hand it over

The handover screen shows a big countdown your child can read. Apps you did not allow are shielded by iOS itself — not by a trick your child can quit.

The phone comes back

A gentle heads-up at five and one minute, then a friendly “time’s up” screen locks every app. Only your Face ID or PIN reopens the phone.

What you get

One app for every “can I borrow your phone?”

Kid Mode Free

Your child opens the apps you picked; other apps get an iOS shield. A countdown they can see makes “time’s up” a fact, not an argument, and Face ID or your PIN is the only way back.

Device Shield Free

  • No deleting apps — not even Cubi Hands
  • No installing new apps
  • No in-app purchases or accidental buys
  • No changing the clock to cheat a timer

Guest Mode Pro

Lending your phone to an adult? Hide banking, Photos, Messages and Mail in one tap — and most of their notifications stay hidden too. Everything else keeps working normally.

Your child’s own device Free

Install Cubi Hands on their iPad or iPhone to add bedtime and homework schedules, category blocking, adult web filtering, and Settings locked behind your PIN.

Fast is a feature Pro

Start a session from a Lock Screen widget, the Action Button, Control Center or Siri: “Start kid mode.” Two taps from a locked phone to a protected one.

Kind by design Free

Warnings before the end, a friendly lock screen instead of an abrupt cut-off, and copy written for a child who is about to be disappointed. Fewer tears, less negotiation.

Privacy is the product

We cannot see which apps you pick. Not because we promise not to look — because Apple never tells us. Your choices arrive as opaque tokens, on your device, and stay there.

  • No account Nothing to sign up for, nothing to leak. Your setup lives in your phone’s own storage.
  • No server We do not run one. There is no “our cloud” for your data to sit in.
  • No tracking Zero analytics SDKs, zero ad networks, zero third-party code. The only network call the app can make is to Apple, for purchases.
  • Nothing to delete Wipe the app’s data in Settings and it is gone — there is no copy anywhere else.

Read the full privacy policy →

Honest boundaries

What we will tell you that the ads won’t.

Every parental-control app has limits. Apps that hide them are the ones that break your trust at the worst possible moment.

Truth 01
If someone knows your iPhone passcode, they can undo any protection app — including this one. Keep the passcode to yourself; that is the real lock.
Truth 02
Phone calls always work during a session. That is deliberate: a child holding your phone must always be able to reach a person.
Truth 03
iOS does not let any app fake a power-off or force the phone shut. When time is up, we lock every app behind a friendly screen instead — that is the honest maximum.
Truth 05
iOS shields the apps outside your list, but a few Apple system apps can stay reachable on some versions. We keep testing it and say so here rather than promise “blocks everything”.
Truth 04
Cubi Hands never sees, collects or transmits anything about you or your child. If that ever changed, the App Store privacy label would have to change first — and we would rather ship less.

Pricing

Pay once. Or never.

Nothing that keeps a child safe is behind the paywall. Pro buys convenience and breadth — once.

Free

$0forever
  • Kid Mode with full session engine
  • All four Device Shield protections
  • Your child’s own device: 1 profile
  • Face ID / PIN unlock
  • One profile only
  • No Guest Mode or widgets
One-time purchase

Pro

$9.99 $14.99launch price · yours forever
  • Unlimited child profiles
  • Guest Mode for adult borrowers
  • Widgets, Action Button, Control Center, Siri
  • Custom “time’s up” message
  • Family Sharing included

No subscription, no ads, no second in-app purchase. Prices shown in US dollars; your App Store shows your local price.

Questions parents ask

Frequently asked

How is this different from Apple’s Screen Time?

Cubi Hands is built on Apple’s Screen Time technology, but it is made for one moment: handing your unlocked phone to someone else. Screen Time is a long-term schedule you configure in Settings; Cubi Hands is one tap before you pass the phone over, with a countdown your child can see and an automatic lock when time is up.

Can my child delete the app to escape the restrictions?

No. While a session is running, app deletion is blocked at the operating-system level, so Cubi Hands itself cannot be removed. Installing new apps and in-app purchases are blocked too, and changing the date and time is locked so timers and schedules cannot be cheated.

Can you see which apps my child uses?

No — and we could not build a version that does. Apple hands apps like ours opaque tokens instead of app identities, so your choices stay private even from us. There is no account, no server and no analytics; nothing about you or your child ever leaves the device.

What happens when the timer runs out?

Every app is locked behind a friendly full-screen message: time is up, please hand the phone back. Only your Face ID, Touch ID or parent PIN unlocks it. iOS does not let any app fake a power-off, so this shield is the honest equivalent.

Is it a subscription?

No. The core is free and Pro is a single one-time purchase that stays yours forever, Family Sharing included. No subscription, no ads.

Does it work on iPad?

Yes — iPhone and iPad on iOS or iPadOS 17 or later. You can also install it on your child’s own iPad to add schedules, category blocking and PIN-locked Settings.

Can my child still make phone calls in Kid Mode?

Yes, on purpose. Calls keep working during a session, because a phone that cannot call for help is not safer — just riskier.

Ready when you are

Five seconds now. No “give it back” argument later.

Coming soon to the App StoreiPhone & iPad · iOS 17+Talk to us

Questions before launch? hellohands@cubi.family