Dash
The short answers
Is there an exercise snacking app for iPhone?
This is one. Dash was built for exercise snacking — a few minutes of movement every hour rather than one block a day — and it runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. The Move — Upper and Move — Lower grids ship ready to go; a micro-habit tracker, if you like, for small things done often.
Is there an hourly habit tracker that runs on a Mac and an iPad?
Yes. Dash has a real Mac app — sidebar, menu bar item, keyboard shortcuts — and an iPad wall meant to sit on a stand, and the two stay in step through your own iCloud. The iPhone and Watch apps are the same purchase.
Does Dash have a subscription?
No. Ever. The free version is two grids per device, with every feature; one payment, about the price of a coffee, unlocks unlimited grids, sync and sharing for good.
Is it any good if you work at a desk all day?
It was built at one. If you work from home, the setup we've ended up with is the iPad on a stand next to the keyboard showing the whole day, the Watch doing the nagging, and ten press-ups between meetings going in with one tap. A desk habit tracker, in other words — though half the examples are nowhere near a desk.
Logging
Tap or hold?
Tap a box to choose what goes in it. Hold a box to log the grid's usual thing — the option marked as the default — without asking. Holding a full box empties it.
The amount I want isn't on the list.
Every sheet has an Other row at the bottom for a typed amount. If you keep typing the same one, add it as an option in the grid's settings and it becomes a tap.
Can one box hold two things?
Not at the moment — one box, one thing, which keeps a box's amount unambiguous. If you regularly do squats and press-ups in the same hour, the honest answer is two grids: Move — Upper and Move — Lower ship that way for exactly this reason.
I forgot to log yesterday. Can I fill it in?
On the Mac, yes: a grid's History tab shows every day and you can edit any box. On iPhone and iPad the grid is today only. A filled-in day never triggers a cheer — those are for the day you're in.
How do I clear a mistake?
Tap the box and choose Clear, or hold a full box. To wipe a whole grid's day: grid › Settings › This grid's data › Clear today. The other grids keep their day.
Can I rename a preset's options, or change the sizes?
Everything about a preset is yours the moment you make it: name, colour, hours, unit, options, icons, sizes. Changing a size later doesn't rewrite history — each box remembers the size it was logged at.
Goals and runs
My ceiling-only grid never goes green during the day.
Deliberate. "Under 2,000 kcal" is true at breakfast because you've eaten nothing, so a grid that went green on that would be cheering before coffee. A ceiling with no floor has nothing to congratulate you for until the day is over — the row goes green the next morning if the day stayed under.
Why did my run break?
A run counts days the goal was met: at the floor and under the ceiling. Three things end one — a day short of the floor, a day over the ceiling, or a day with nothing in it at all. Being over counts the same as being short: a day you overshot is not a day you hit.
Can I have an easier goal at the weekend?
Yes. grid › Settings › Different goals on different days. Each weekday is either "as usual" or its own numbers — all of them, floor and ceiling together. The week bars beside the row show each day against its own goal.
Five boxes but I only need to fill three?
Set the goal lower than the number of boxes. The row goes green at three and the last two are a bonus. Fruit & Veg ships as seven boxes with a goal of five for this reason.
I logged something at 1am and it went on yesterday.
That's the day start: the day rolls at 4am, not midnight, so late things belong to the evening they were part of. Change it in Settings › Screen & day › Day starts at.
Can I turn the confetti off? Or on?
Per grid: grid › Settings › Hitting the goal — nothing, a pat on the back, or over the top. It fires once a day, only on the device you did it on, and respects Reduce Motion.
Nags
What's the difference between a nag and a flash?
A nag makes a noise: a tone in the app, a notification, or both. A flash makes the box pulse — slowly at first, faster as the time runs out — and says nothing. Nags belong to the device you set them on; flashes belong to the grid and go wherever it goes. You can have both on the same grid, on the same condition.
What can set one off?
Four conditions, for either: nothing logged for a while — quiet for 90 minutes, say; before the hour closes — you're short and the box is about to be crossed; after a missed hour — one went by empty; behind by a certain time — it's 4pm and you should be at three by now.
Where do I set each one?
Nags are on the grid's Nags pane, and they are this device's: the iPad on the desk can chime while the phone in your pocket doesn't. The flash is one setting on the grid's Settings pane — Flash the box, with the condition — and because it belongs to the grid it shows on every device that has it, and on anyone's you've shared it with.
Will my nags show up on my other devices?
No, and that's deliberate. A nag is a tone or a notification, and which device should make a noise is a decision about the device, not the grid — the iPad on the desk can chime while the phone in your pocket stays quiet. So nags never replicate: not to your other devices, not in a grid file, not to somebody you share the grid with. (A whole-device backup does carry them, since it's a copy of that device — and only a full replace puts them back.) Set them on each device that should speak. Flashes are the opposite: they belong to the grid and go everywhere it goes.
The nag didn't fire.
In order of likelihood: the goal was already met (nags and flashes both stop the moment it is); you're over a ceiling (they go quiet rather than ask for more); it's outside the grid's hours; you set it on a different device (nags don't travel — flashes do); or notifications are off for Dash in the system Settings — the nag then says so on its own row.
Can I log from the notification without opening the app?
Yes — the buttons are your three most-used options, or your usual sizes on a measured grid. On the phone, pull the banner down or press and hold it to see them; a plain tap opens the app, which is how iOS is. On the Watch the buttons are right there in the long look.
Why is the tone different on my Watch?
watchOS doesn't let an app attach its own sound to a notification, so a nag that reaches the wrist uses the system sound and a haptic. The ten Dash tones play in the app on the phone, iPad and Mac.
Devices
The iPad dims, then goes black.
By design — it's meant to sit on a stand. After five minutes of no touch it dims; after fifteen it goes to the sleep face: black, the time, one line per grid, moved every few minutes so nothing burns in. Touch anywhere and the wall comes back. Both timings are in Settings › Screen & day (Dim after, Screensaver after), and Lights out at night makes it fully dark between two hours you choose.
Will it flatten the battery?
No. When the device is off power Dash lets the screen sleep normally below 20%, however the screen settings are set. A wall nobody is looking at cannot kill the iPad it's on.
Is the Mac version a real Mac app?
Yes — its own AppKit-style window with a sidebar, an inspector, a menu bar item for logging without finding the window, and keyboard shortcuts. Not a phone app in a window.
Which grids does my Watch show?
The grids on your iPhone that have On Apple Watch switched on (it's in each grid's Share pane — switch off the ones that are awkward one-handed). How they get there is the app's business: a grid you've published comes through iCloud, so the Watch keeps up even when the phone isn't around; one you haven't comes straight from the phone when it's in reach. Delete a grid on the phone and it leaves the Watch.
My Watch says "Waiting for iPhone".
A fresh Watch install asks the phone for its grids; that needs the phone nearby and the Dash app installed on it. Open Dash on the phone once if it's taking a while. The Watch's Sync screen (past the grids) says what it has had from the phone and when.
I switched a grid off the Watch on my iPad, and it's still there.
On Apple Watch belongs to the grid. If the grid is published, the iPad's switch reaches the Watch through iCloud. If it isn't, the iPad's copy is the iPad's own grid — the Watch shows the phone's grids — so flip the switch on the phone.
Widgets and complications?
A Home Screen widget per grid on iPhone and iPad, and a complication for the Watch's Smart Stack — the grid's number, and whether anything is nagging.
Sync
How do I get a grid onto my other devices?
Open the grid's settings, go to Share, tap Publish. That puts the grid into your own iCloud. On the other device, open Settings — the grid is listed under In iCloud, not here — and tap Join. From then on both devices write to it and stay in step.
Where's the sync switch?
There isn't one. Sync is per grid: a grid is either published or it isn't. That's the whole setting, and it means a grid you never publish never touches the network.
What if both devices logged while offline?
Both survive. Days are folded together entry by entry when the devices next see each other, so nothing is lost and nothing is doubled. A box you deleted stays deleted — the device that still had it can't hand it back.
"Stop sharing on this device" versus "Remove from iCloud"?
Different sentences. Stop sharing on this device leaves the grid here and the copy in iCloud alone — "I don't want this on my Mac". Remove from iCloud takes the shared copy away from every device but deletes nothing anyone already has — every device keeps the grid and its history, and you can publish it again later.
It says another device already has a grid with the same id.
Two grids that started life as the same preset on two devices. Joining folds the pair together: every entry from both is kept, and whichever side was edited more recently sets the name, hours, options and goals. If they were genuinely different grids, rename one before joining.
It says "Not signed in to iCloud".
Sync uses the iCloud account the device is signed into, in the system Settings. Sign in there and Dash carries on; there's no Dash account to make.
Your data
How do I get my data out?
One grid: grid › Settings › This grid's data — as a spreadsheet (.csv, one row per tick with the time you tapped it) or a Dash file (.json). Everything: Settings › Your data, same two choices.
How do I get it back in?
Settings › Your data › Import a backup or a grid: choose a Dash file, or paste one. Add to what's here folds it in — nothing you've logged is lost, a box that's in both is kept once, and a grid you already have takes the file's settings only if the file is newer. Replace everything throws away what's on the device first, and asks before it does. Spreadsheets can't be imported; they're for reading.
I'm moving to a new phone.
Either publish your grids and join them from the new phone, or export a backup and import it there. Both work; the first keeps the two phones in step afterwards, the second is a one-time copy.
Does the web version read these files?
Yes — the format is the same on purpose. A backup from either goes into the other.
How do I start again?
Settings › Your data › Erase everything. Every grid and all history on that device, gone. Nothing is removed from iCloud — a published grid stays there for your other devices.
Privacy
Where is my data?
On the device, in one file. It stays there unless you publish a grid to your own iCloud (your Apple ID, your storage, nobody else can read it — not even us) or share a grid with someone (an iCloud share between you and them). Dash has no server of its own.
Analytics, tracking, ads?
None. Dash doesn't phone home, doesn't know how you use it, and shows nothing but your grids. Until you publish or share a grid it makes no network connection of its own.
Does it read or write Apple Health?
No. Dash counts taps; it doesn't ask your phone what you did.
Is there a proper privacy policy?
Yes — one page, and it says the same as the three answers above, at slightly more length.
Buying it
What's free?
Two grids on each device you install it on, with every feature — goals, nags, trends, export. No time limit, no nagging to upgrade. What it doesn't include is iCloud: the two grids on your phone and the two on your iPad are separate grids, and keeping them in step — or sending one to somebody else — is the unlock. The Watch is fine either way: it shows the phone's grids, iCloud or not.
What does the unlock buy?
As many grids as you like, iCloud sync between your devices, and sharing with other people. One payment, about the price of a coffee-shop coffee; the App Store shows the exact price for your country.
Do I pay again on the Mac?
No. It's one purchase across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch — bought on any of them, owned on all of them. If a device doesn't show it as unlocked — a new phone, say — open Settings › Unlock Dash and tap Restore Purchases; it asks the App Store, which may want you to sign in.
Family Sharing?
Yes. The unlock is shared with your Family Sharing group, so a household that shares a grid pays once. If a family member's device doesn't pick it up, Restore Purchases on that device does it.
Refunds?
Purchases go through Apple, so refunds do too: reportaproblem.apple.com. Nothing about that involves us, which is how it should be.
I've lost the unlock — what happens to my grids?
Nothing. Every grid stays readable and every box stays logged; you just can't add more grids or share until it's restored. Losing history because a receipt stopped validating is the worst thing an app like this could do, so it doesn't.
The words
- wall
- What Dash shows: every grid, stacked, one day wide. On an iPad on a stand it's the whole day at a glance; on a phone it's the same wall with a window on the hours around you. Not a dashboard — there are no dials.
- grid
- One row on the wall: a name, a colour, a row of boxes and a list of things you might put in one. "Liquids" is a grid. So is "Cat — fed".
- box
- One slot in a grid. On an hourly grid a box is an hour; on the other two kinds it's just the next one along.
- tally
- The big number beside the grid's name: what today adds up to, against the goal.
2.63/2L,9/8. - met
- Today reached the floor and stayed under the ceiling. The row goes green and grows a tick. Over the ceiling is not met.
- run
- Days in a row the goal was met. "3 day run". Today doesn't break a run until it's over.
- nag
- A tone in the app or a notification, on a condition: nothing logged for a while, before the hour closes, after a missed hour, behind by a certain time. Nags belong to the device you set them on.
- flash
- The box itself pulsing — slowly to begin with, faster as the time runs out — on the same kinds of condition as a nag. Flashes belong to the grid — one per grid, set in its Settings — and travel with it to every device and to anyone it's shared with.
- day start
- When one day becomes the next. 4am by default, so a nightcap at 1am counts as last night and a 2am feed belongs to the night it happened in.
- publish / join
- Putting a grid into your own iCloud, and picking it up from another of your devices. Per grid. A grid you never publish never leaves the device.
- share
- Sending a published grid to another person, through iCloud, read-only or read-write. They see that grid and nothing else of yours.
- Dash file
- A grid, or everything, exported as a
.jsonfile that Dash can import again — on this device, another of yours, or somebody else's. The spreadsheet export (.csv) is for looking at and can't be imported.