how BiteBrake works
the four things it does
you set your kitchen-closed hours
pick a close time and a reopen time. the defaults are 8:30 pm and 6:00 am, which sits just ahead of when appetite tends to peak: in a 13-day laboratory protocol that spread sleeping and eating evenly across the clock, hunger followed an internal daily rhythm that bottomed out around 8 am and peaked around 8 pm, independent of when participants had last eaten[2].
you choose which apps to lock
you pick them from the apps on your phone. BiteBrake does not choose for you, and it does not touch anything you did not select.
the phone holds the line
during the window, opening one of those apps gets you BiteBrake instead. no decision required from you at 11 pm, because you already made it.
you ride out the craving, or you don't
rate the craving 1–10, name what set it off, and take a craving breaker — about a minute. then either the urge has passed, or you tap open anyway and order. both outcomes get recorded without commentary.
why the time is set in advance
the hard part of a late-night craving is not knowing what you want to do. it is that 11 pm you has different priorities from 6 pm you, and 11 pm you is the one holding the phone. setting the window earlier moves the decision to the version of you that finds it easy.
this is the one piece of behaviour-change research that is genuinely settled. a meta-analysis of 94 tests covering roughly 8,000 people found that deciding in advance exactly when, where and how you will act has a medium-to-large effect on whether you follow through compared with simply intending to[1]. a kitchen-closed schedule is that, with the phone doing the remembering.
what the blocking actually is
this is the part most apps are vague about, so here it is plainly. the two platforms work differently, and neither is magic.
| iPhone and iPad | Android | |
|---|---|---|
| mechanism | apple's Family Controls[3] (screen time) shields the apps you picked | an accessibility service[4] notices a blocked app opening and interrupts it |
| what you have to allow | a screen time authorisation prompt, once | you switch the service on yourself in system settings |
| works when BiteBrake is closed | yes — the shield is applied by the system | yes, while the service stays enabled |
| can you get around it | yes, by turning the permission off | yes, by turning the service off |
the craving flow
when you open a blocked app, you get four quick things rather than a wall.
- how strong is it, 1–10. one tap. this is the bit that turns out to matter later, because it shows you that a 9 and a 4 both pass.
- what set it off. stress, boredom, habit, watching something, working late, cannot sleep, social, or something else.
- a craving breaker. about a minute of breathing, moving, or writing a line down. long enough for the peak to move.
- ride it out, or open anyway. no guilt-tripping either way.
why there is an escape hatch
because an app you cannot get out of gets deleted. open anyway is one tap, it breaks the streak, and it goes in your history as a normal entry. an evening you ordered is data, not a failure — and if you are ordering on the nights you rated a 3, that pattern is worth seeing.
what it records
every craving check-in — the time, the intensity, the trigger, and how it ended. over a few weeks that becomes an actual picture of your evenings: which nights, which triggers, what time the pressure peaks. there is a journal and a 90-night reset that counts protected nights rather than a perfect streak, because a 7-day streak is not the thing that changes anything.
your journal stays on your device.
common questions
- does it work if I force-quit BiteBrake?
- yes. on iPhone the shield is applied by the system through screen time, and on Android the accessibility service runs independently of the app being open. closing BiteBrake does not reopen your delivery apps.
- why does the Android version need an accessibility service?
- because Android has no equivalent of Apple's screen time API for third-party apps. an accessibility service is the only supported way for an app to notice that another app has come to the foreground and act on it. it is a broad permission, which is why you have to enable it yourself in system settings, and why we ask for nothing else.
- can I still order food if I really want to?
- yes. tap open anyway in the craving flow and the app opens. it breaks your streak and it gets logged, but nothing stops you. an app that trapped you would just get uninstalled on the first bad night.
- what happens if I change my mind about the hours?
- you can change the window whenever you like — it takes effect from the next night. the schedule is a decision you are making for yourself, not a contract.
- does it block food apps during the day too?
- no. outside your kitchen-closed hours nothing is blocked. BiteBrake is aimed at the specific stretch of evening where the ordering happens, not at delivery in general.
- do I need to create an account?
- no. BiteBrake works without one, and your journal and craving history stay on your device.
sources
- [1] Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis of effects and processes (opens in a new tab). Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38:69–119, 2006. Gollwitzer & Sheeran. 94 independent tests, ~8,000 participants; specifying in advance when, where and how you will act had a medium-to-large effect on goal attainment (d = 0.65).
- [2] The internal circadian clock increases hunger and appetite in the evening independent of food intake and other behaviors (opens in a new tab). Obesity (Silver Spring) 21(3):421–3, 2013. Scheer, Morris & Shea. 12 adults, 13-day forced-desynchrony protocol; hunger trough at 8 AM, peak at 8 PM, peak-to-trough amplitude 17%.
- [3] Family Controls framework documentation (opens in a new tab). Apple Developer, 2026. The Screen Time API BiteBrake uses on iOS to shield selected apps. Requires the user to grant authorization.
- [4] Accessibility services overview (opens in a new tab). Android Developers, 2026. The mechanism BiteBrake uses on Android to detect and interrupt a blocked app opening. The user must enable the service explicitly in system settings.
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