Grackle: the focus app that roasts you

The pitch

Focus, and the bird goes hunting.

Start a session (5, 10, 25, or 50 minutes, or any length you set) and the bird flies off to forage. Stay out of your phone until the timer ends and it returns with something shiny for your hoard. Quit early and it comes back with nothing, and stares. Comedy, never guilt. The bird roasts because it stays. Your streak is not a number, it is a pile of loot you can scroll through.

01 · FORAGE

The bird goes hunting

Start a focus session. Leave the app for more than 30 seconds and the forage fails.

02 · REVEAL

It drops the loot

Finish clean and it lands, tilts its head, and drops a shiny on the pile. Every item has its own flavor.

03 · THE STARE

Or it just stares

Bail early and it comes back empty. One kind line: it once gave up on a whole parking lot.

What makes it different

Not your average focus app.

Most focus and habit apps are quiet, earnest, and a little guilt-trippy. Grackle is a character.

Most focus apps Grackle

Personality A timer. That is about it. A smart-ass grackle that talks back.

When you slip Guilt. You break your streak and feel bad about it. Comedy. It roasts you, never shames you.

Your progress A number on a chart. A hoard of weird collectible trinkets, each with a story.

The chase Watch a streak count climb. Hunt rarities and chase a one-in-thousands grail.

Price Usually a subscription. One time, a few bucks. No subscription.

Your data Sign up, sync to a cloud. No account. It lives on your phone.

The hoard

Your streak is a treasure pile.

Drops roll across five rarities. Over sixty trinkets in the catalog, each with its own flavor text. The rarest is a one-in-thousands grail the bird can barely believe it found.

Common

Bottle Cap, Topo Chico

Still cold somehow.

Common

Guitar Pick, Medium

Every third person in Austin sheds these.

Uncommon

AirPod, Left

Somewhere a jogger grieves.

Uncommon

Hotel Key Card, Room 217

Checked out, never checked back in.

Rare

Chert Arrowhead

Four thousand years of Austin in one point.

Rare

Silver Dollar, 1921

Heavier than it should be.

Legendary

Spanish Doubloon

Eight reales, minted under a king.

Legendary

The Yellow Marble

Looks exactly like the bird's eye. The bird finds this hilarious.

The menace ladder

Miss a day and the bird escalates.

Skip a day and the bird sends one push notification. Skip another and the next day's push climbs a rung: a silent look, then a guilt trip, then it is screaming, then it is (allegedly) screaming at strangers about you. Open the app even once and the whole ladder resets. It is a bit, not a threat. Here is the actual copy, day by day.

GrackleDay 1

No words. Just the eye.

GrackleDay 2

The bird is looking at you. You know what you did. Or did not.

GrackleDay 3

SCREAMING. (you can end this at any time)

GrackleDay 4+

The bird has begun screaming at strangers about you.

Pick your poison

Choose the attitude. And the language.

Two dials, like a weather app with a mean streak. Slide the bird from a proud parent to a feral menace, and on a second dial set how much it swears. It still pays you in treasure. It just has opinions about how.

Attitude

Wholesome Dry Sassy Salty Rude Savage Unhinged

Language

Off Subtle Drunken Sailor

Same moment, you bailed on a session early. Three languages:

Off

"Gave up. Classic you. The parking lot is more committed than you are."

Subtle

"Gave up. Classic damn move. The parking lot has more spine."

Drunken Sailor

"Gave up. Classic. Parking lot has more backbone than you, you bastard."

What it is

Yours, once. No strings.

•

One-time purchase. Pay once, keep it. No subscription, ever.

•

No account. Nothing to sign up for. No email, no login.

•

Stays on your phone. Your hoard lives on your device. No server, no cloud, nothing uploaded.

•

No ads. The bird sells nothing. It just judges you, for free.