Boredom Mode Support

Boredom Mode is a set of small toys you play with your hands: domes to pop, sand to carve, water to ripple, pegs of light that play as a song or a beat, glowing bars that play a song, a small synthesizer with a loop, a record to scratch, a drum beat made step by step, a color-shifting liquid, and Mix, a page that plays what was made on the others together as one song. Nothing a child needs depends on reading. The toys have no levels, no timers and no way to fail; the one exception is Domes' optional Chaos mode, a timed game with a score that a grown-up switches on in settings (below). Boredom Mode works offline and collects nothing (Privacy Policy).

Contact: support@boredommode.com. We read everything and aim to reply within a few days.

The toys

Boredom Mode opens on the home screen: one small moving picture for each toy, drawn from the toy itself, and no words. The toy played last wears a ring. At Calm and Everyday the ten pictures sit in two columns, five rows, each in the same place at both. The music pages (EM8, Voice, Beats and Mix) sit together at the bottom, on a dark shelf of their own; the toys fill the rows above. Prism appears only at Bright, after the other toys, and the toys then make three columns (the shelf stays two by two). Tap a picture to open that toy, and tap (or double-tap) the house at the bottom left to come back to the home screen. A toy's sounds stop the moment you leave it, EM8's loop included, and the home screen itself never makes a sound. The one exception is Mix: once you press its play, the mix plays on while you visit the other music pages, and stops on the home screen or any other toy (below). With VoiceOver, each picture is a button named after its toy, and the house is "Home".

Show me how. The hand in the middle of the bottom row, in every toy, plays a short demonstration (on the music pages, Glow, EM8, Beats, Voice and Mix, a tap on it opens their step-by-step guide instead: below): a ghost hand shows the toy's main gesture first, then a step or two more (in Glow, drawing, pressing play, then a line in another color; in Mix, play, a lane's level, then the Beats lane), in under ten seconds, with no words and no sound. It is only a picture: it never plays a sound or changes what your child made, and a touch anywhere stops it. The one exception is Glow's first visit, on its empty board: there the demonstration really draws its lines and really presses play, so the picture is heard, and what it drew stays, your child's to change. It also plays once by itself the first time each toy is opened, never at Calm (it waits to be asked). A touch in the moment before it starts, or a finger still resting on the screen when it is due, calls it off for that visit, and one stopped partway through plays once more on a later visit, then not again. A toy pinned with Stay on plays it once by itself the next time the app opens on it (at Everyday and Bright), so the child it was set up for sees it; a toy already pinned before this version does too, once. At Calm, and on a toy pinned with Stay on, a still ring round the hand marks it until the hand has been tapped in that toy. With Reduce Motion on it shows still pictures with arrows instead of moving. VoiceOver reads the toy's description as it starts. Tap the hand again once it has played, on Decks, Keys, Grain and Domes, and short names appear on the toy's buttons for a few seconds (Decks' sounds button, tricks, repeat pads and cut; Keys' switch and sounds; Grain's carve, smooth and brush; Domes' mode, Zen or Chaos); tap it again for the demonstration. A grown-up version in words is in settings: one line a page under How to play, and the rest in each page's row under More.

Whatever your child makes, such as a carved sand tray, is still there next time they open that toy.

Settings are for grown-ups

Press and hold the round button with the gear (bottom right) for about a second, until the ring around it fills. Letting go early never opens settings, which keeps small hands out; a short tap just shows a small "Hold to open" note beside the button, as a reminder for the grown-up.

The hold is for touch only. With VoiceOver, Switch Control, Voice Control or a keyboard (Full Keyboard Access), the button opens settings straight away, like any other button: with VoiceOver, select it and double-tap. If your child uses one of these, the button is no barrier for them. Guided Access (below) can switch off the button's corner of the screen; check that it also holds with your child's setup.

Settings puts first what a grown-up looks for first:

1. Feel: Calm, Everyday or Bright (below).
2. Pages shown: Stay on one toy, and which toys the home screen shows (below).
3. Recording: the microphone's switch and the recordings (below).
4. Save: over Glow, EM8, Voice or Mix, that page's Save… buttons (each behind the grown-up check); anywhere else, a line on where saving is.
5. How to play: "No sound? Check the silent switch" (below), then "The hand on each page shows you how it's played", then one line a page: over the home screen, every page on it, with its picture; over a page, that page's.
6. More: one folded row per page, the page on screen first. Each holds that page's few short lines from the table above (each starting with what you do, "Draw:", "Play:"; Glow's with the music, EM8's with the i while EM8 has one), its own options while it is open (below), and on EM8, Beats, Voice and Mix its View: Simple (a few big controls, the way it first opens) or Studio (every control). The page remembers Studio once it is opened there; pick here to set it for your child. EM8's row also has the EM8 guide: every one of EM8's controls and what it does (below). Then three more rows: getting around (the house, the hand, the settings button), the hand button, and saving a file.
7. Theme: Ember, Clay, Dusk or Wrap, one row of four. (1.1 offers these four; a phone set to a theme from an earlier test build opens in Ember.)
8. Sound & Touch, then Privacy.

Privacy policy, near the bottom of settings, shows this app's privacy policy in full, as plain text: it works offline, and nothing on it opens a website.

Close the sheet with ✕, by tapping outside it, or by dragging it down. While settings are open the toy pauses: it takes no touches, its sounds stop and it ignores tilt until the sheet closes.

Each toy's own options

Open settings while a toy is on screen and its row under More holds its options (its Save… buttons are under Save, near the top):

• Domes: Zen or Chaos (below), and the dome shape.
• Grain: Rake the tray, which smooths away what was carved and rakes a fresh pattern.
• Water: Still the water. Prism: Still the colors.
• Glow: Clear picture, and Bring the picture back if you change your mind (until the next Clear picture, even if more was drawn or wiped since; it also returns the pegs the last wipe, eraser or tap took out, and takes the die's picture off again, leaving the board as it was); Play as a song or a beat, and the Song feel, Dreamy or Groove (the same as the note-or-drum button and the moon-or-dancer button on the board); Swing and when the Beat guides show (for the beat); under Save, Save the song and Save the beat (below). The music never starts by itself; it stops when settings open, and when nobody has touched the board for a while (a beat after about half a minute, a song after it has played through twice, under a minute) it fades out and stops.
• Keys: whether it starts in Song or Free play; the sound (chimes, piano or drums; the drum kit is changed in Keys, with the drum button); show or hide the mode switch and sound buttons (hidden, Keys stays in the mode and sound it starts with and a tap anywhere plays); which song, or a different one each time; Start the song over.
• Decks: Record hiss or No hiss: the faint hiss of a record's surface under the sound while it plays (never at Calm).
• Voice: notes on the page; under Save, Save the loop (below).
• Mix: notes on the page; under Save, Save the mix (below). The mix never starts by itself, stops when settings open, and after a minute with nobody touching it (half a minute at Calm) it fades out and stops.
• EM8: first, how to see what any control does (the i); then how much of the synthesizer shows (Controls: Simple, Studio a tap away, the default; Always Simple; Always Studio; Studio with a simple lab; or Just keys); the keyboard (all 12 notes, white keys only, five big keys, or the theme's notes); the dots on the keys; whether touch strength depends on where a key is struck; what a whole hand plays; how far a key bends; finger vibrato; the die; how long a note lasts for a key pressed with VoiceOver or Switch Control; the loop shown or hidden (hidden, the grid and the loop's buttons go and the loop stops); Click while recording; under Save, Save the loop (below); Clear the loop; Back to the first sound (the sweep, length and echo back to the middle and off too); Clear saved sounds.

The music pages' guide

On Glow, EM8, Beats, Voice and Mix, tap the hand at the bottom (or the page's name, then Guide) for a short walkthrough of the page: three steps, each ending in sound (press Next without doing a step and the page does it for you, so Next alone always ends in music), then on some a card of more tips. The page dims and one control at a time stays lit, ringed, with a line on what to do and Back, Next and Done. The lit control still works, so you can try it there and then; a touch on the dimmed page does nothing. The house, the hand and the settings button still work as ever.

• EM8: play a key, pick a sound picture, drag the sweep (on Simple and Studio alike; Next plays a key, picks the next picture, moves the sweep; Just keys has its own short guide).
• Glow: draw (or tap the die), press play, then the note or the drum, or another color (Next draws a picture with the die, then presses play).
• Beats: three steps that each end in a sound: make (tap squares), play, change (the die); then a card of more tips, about Studio. Press Next without doing a step and the guide does it for you: four kick steps, then play, then the die (undo brings your own beat back).
• Voice: three steps, each ending in sound: pick a sound (or record one), play, change it (an effect picture, or in Studio a knob), then a card of more tips. Press Next without doing a step and the guide does it for you, so Next alone ends with the loop playing.
• Mix: three steps, on Simple's lanes or Studio's strips alike: press play (or, with nothing made anywhere yet, tap the Beats lane to make a beat with Beats' die), louder and quieter, then mute. Pressing only Next still ends in sound: Mix plays, with a beat of the guide's own if there is nothing else (it is never saved, and gone once you leave Mix).

A control that takes you somewhere (EM8's lab, Beats' tray of sounds, Mix's effect or AUTO page, an empty Mix lane) steps the guide aside when you use it; tap the hand again and it carries on at the next step. Leaving the page or opening settings ends it where it was; Done starts it over next time. Tap the hand while a step shows and every control's name appears on it for a few seconds instead; tap the hand again for the guide.

The guide never starts by itself, at any feel level. Nothing in it moves: each change is one gentle fade, and however fast Next, Back or the hand are tapped, it changes at most about three times a second. With VoiceOver, each step is read from the lit control (focus moves there), with Next, Back and Done as actions; the two-finger scrub ends it. The kids' toys keep the wordless ghost hand.

EM8: sweep, length and echo

EM8 wears the music pages' look in every theme, as Beats, Voice and Mix do: a dark graphite page, thin-edged buttons, EM8's teal for what is chosen or sounding, and numbers you can read. The knobs and sliders show their values (a length of −50 %, an echo of 35 %, a tempo of 100 BPM), the big picture shows the sweep and the loop's tempo in its corners, and the sound lab's envelope, filter and wobble show theirs along their tops. The name at the top right, • EM8, beside the i, says which music page this is.

Three hands-on controls change everything EM8 plays at once: the keys, the pads, and the loop's notes, each still in its own sound. They are not part of a sound (the picture sounds, the die and your saved sounds leave them alone), and they are kept for next time.

• Sweep: drag across the big picture. Left makes every note darker, right brighter; drag up to make the sweep ring. A held note follows at once; a playing loop from its next note. A small ring and two thin lines show where the sweep is; the tick at the middle is each sound as it is.
• Length: the LENGTH knob over the picture (drag up or down on it; hold still a moment first for fine steps, double-tap to put it back). Down makes every note shorter (all the way: short plucks), up longer; its number says by how much.
• Echo: the ECHO knob beside it. Every note repeats, in time with the loop (a dotted eighth note unless you change it). Turning it down lets the repeats already sounding ring out. In the sound lab's Filter page, the row at the bottom sets the echo's length (an eighth, a dotted eighth or a quarter note), how many times it repeats, and how bright the repeats are.

However far they go, EM8's volume and brightness limits still hold: a note with echo plays a little softer, so it and its repeats are no louder than it alone. At Calm the echo is quieter, darker and repeats fewer times. It stops the moment you leave EM8, with everything else. A saved sound file keeps the sweep, length and echo as they were when you saved; a MIDI file is the notes only.

On the pads, a drum kit or a drum machine brings, in place of the octave dots, a small picture for each kit of its family: the Drum kit, Studio kit and Electronic kit, or the Techno machine and Hip-hop machine. Every kit lays its drums out the same way (kick bottom left, closed hi-hat third on the second row, open hi-hat third on the third), so a rhythm feels the same on each. The Hip-hop machine also has a Boom Kick, second on the second row: a long, deep boom. Chosen on the keys (in the sound lab's Sample page), it plays as a pitched boom.

EM8: what every control does

EM8 can explain itself, for a curious older child or a grown-up (a young child never needs it):

• Tap the i at the top right (it is in the same place in the play view, the sound lab and the loop grid, in Studio: tap Studio › at the top left, or set EM8's Controls to Always Studio). It turns into a solid dot with the i cut out of it, for as long as it explains.
• Touch any control. A small bubble beside it says what it does in a line or two, some with a tiny live picture: an envelope with the stage the note is in lit up as you play, the filter's curve, the wobble's wave moving at its speed, the echo's repeats. Touch the same control again to put the bubble away; a third time in a row, and EM8 stops explaining (a child tapping one sound over and over gets it back). The buttons that only take you somewhere, such as the next bar, never stop it, and nor does going along a row of tiles.
• While the i is a solid dot, nothing you touch changes the sound: a knob, a picture or a button only explains itself. The keys and pads still play, so you can watch a picture follow a note, and the buttons that only take you somewhere (the lab and its pages, the grid and its bars, the bigger steps) still do. The loop's play button still stops a playing loop, but nothing starts one; if the loop was recording when you tapped the i, the recording stops first and is kept.
• Tap the i again to finish. It also turns itself off after about twenty seconds without a touch on a control, and whenever you leave EM8.

The same words, every control's, are in Settings → More → EM8 → EM8 guide, and VoiceOver reads each control's as its hint. (The i itself is not offered to VoiceOver or Switch Control, which already read every explanation.) Moving pictures hold still with Reduce Motion on.

EM8: the loop

EM8 can keep a short piece of music: a loop of 8 or 16 bars that plays round and round. Each note keeps the sound it was played or drawn with: choose another sound and the notes you add next use it, while the notes already in the loop stay as they were, and a saved sound file sounds just the same.

• Record: tap the circle (at the right end of the row with the octave dots, or at the top of the loop grid). If the loop isn't playing, four soft ticks count you in, then it plays and records together; if it is, recording starts at once. Tap the circle again, or stop, to finish. What you play lands on the nearest sixteenth note. The loop keeps notes, not gestures: a bend, a slide or a wobble you make while playing isn't recorded.
• Draw: open the grid (the button under the dial). Each row is a note (with the Sample source on pads, a pad), each column a sixteenth. Tap an empty square to add a note and hear it; tap a note to take it out; drag sideways to draw a longer note, or drag a note's end to stretch or shorten it. Drag up or down on the little keyboard at the left to see higher or lower notes. The arrows and the strip of bars move between bars; the bigger-steps button shows half a bar at a time with wider squares.
• Play and stop: the triangle. The loop starts at the bar the grid shows (from the keyboard, the first bar).
• Tempo, length, adds or replaces: the TEMPO knob sets the speed (its number is the beats a minute; clear sits beside it); 8 or 16 bars; recording can add to the notes already there or replace the ones it passes.
• Undo takes back the last recording, drawing or clear, and a second undo puts it back. Clear needs a press and hold (with VoiceOver it asks first).
• The loop's sounds: one loop holds up to four. The small square of four swatches beside the play button (and next to the strip of bars on the grid) shows them, and on the grid each sound's notes have their own look: plain, stripes, dots or bars. A ring marks the sound new notes will use. A dashed ring means the loop already has four sounds, so new notes use the one of them closest to the sound you chose. A sound makes room for another once all its notes are gone.

The loop only ever plays while EM8 is on screen. It never starts by itself: only a tap on play or record starts it. It stops the moment you leave EM8 (for the home screen, another toy, settings, another app, or when the phone locks), and it is stopped when you come back. Left alone for about a minute (half that at Calm), it fades over one bar and stops, and a recording left running ends with it; a long, slow loop always plays through once first. What was recorded or drawn is kept for next time.

Saving an EM8 loop

A grown-up can keep a loop as a file, for example to finish it in a music app: open settings while EM8 is on screen, then, under Save at the top, Save the loop…, and choose the kind of file:

• WAV (best quality) or M4A (smaller): a sound file, and whether it is loop-ready (the end flows back into the start, so it repeats without a bump).
• MIDI: the notes themselves, for a music app. Each of the loop's sounds is a track of its own on a channel from 1 to 4 (sound 1 on channel 1, and so on), every note at the pitch you hear (a note too high or too low for EM8 plays an octave or two nearer the middle, and is saved that way). On the pads, each drum of the built-in kit, the drum kits and the drum machines is on channel 10, in a drums track of its own, at its note on the standard drum map (kick 36, a second kind of kick 35, rim 37, snare 38, clap 39, closed hi-hat 42, low tom 45, open hi-hat 46, crash 49, ride 51, cowbell 56, shaker 70, clave 75, and so on; the map has no finger snap, so a snap is saved as a clap), so a music app's drums play the same drums; any other pad (a piano note, a bell, a zap, a blip) is at its own pitch. Every note keeps its place, length and strength from the loop, at the loop's tempo.

The file always has EM8's standard sound and the loop's own speed, even at Calm, where the phone plays a fast loop more slowly and more softly. Tap Save… and answer the grown-up check: a multiplication written in words ("What is twenty-three times seven?"), typed on a number pad; a line under its title says what it is for ("To save a file."). With sound on, it also says "Ask a grown-up to help." out loud as it opens. After three wrong answers in a row (cancelling and opening it again doesn't start the count over) the check rests for 30 seconds; if that keeps happening, for 2 minutes, 10 minutes and then an hour at a time, until someone answers it right. The file is made on the phone, silently, then the phone's own Save to Files screen lets you choose where it goes (for example On My iPhone). It is named like "EM8 loop - 8 bars - 100 BPM", with nothing about who made it or when.

Boredom Mode itself sends the file nowhere and keeps no copy. If you choose an online folder, the service behind that folder handles the file from then on.

Glow: fine pegs, zoom and the brush

Glow's board has 64 columns of small pegs on every iPhone, a little over a hundred rows, for pictures made of dots.

• The brush. A finger puts in a few pegs at a time, a fingertip's worth, so even a toddler's line shows. The dot beside the eraser makes the brush thin (about three pegs across) or thick (about seven); the eraser follows it. The choice is kept with the picture.
• Taking pegs out. Tap pegs and the ones under your finger pop out; or pick the eraser; or drag two fingers together across the board.
• Zoom. Spread two fingers on the board to zoom in, up to 8 times: the brush stays the size of a fingertip, so zoomed in it puts in single pegs, one at a time. Zoomed in, two fingers move the board around. Pinch back to zoom out, or tap the little map at the top, in the row with play (it shows which part you are looking at), or tap twice with two fingers: the whole picture fades back in. The zoom isn't saved: Glow always opens on the whole picture.
• Two fingers at full size do one of two things, told apart by how they move: apart or together is a zoom; side by side across the board is a wipe. Once zoomed in, two fingers always move the board. A zoom never draws or erases, even with the eraser picked or one finger landing a moment after the other, and lifting one finger and putting it back mid-zoom carries on zooming.
• Pictures from before. A picture made before the pegs got small comes back as it was: each old peg is now a little block of small pegs in the same place and color, and the beat plays exactly as before.
• Moving fast. While the board moves quickly under the fingers (a fast pinch or a fling), its fine detail softens into a blur, and it sharpens again the moment it slows. A busy picture streaming past would otherwise flicker; slow, careful zooming stays sharp.

Glow: the song

Glow can play a picture as music instead of as a beat: the song. The note and drum switch at the top, after the turtle and the hare, picks: with the note lit it plays the picture as a song, with the drum lit as a beat. A new board starts as a song; a picture made before the song arrived opens as the beat it was made as. Each picture keeps its choice.

• How a picture becomes music. The line of light still sweeps the board from left to right. The edge of the color with the most interesting shape sings the melody: where it climbs, the tune climbs; a flat run is one long note; a gap is a rest. Shapes stacked above one another add chords under it, big areas of color hold soft chords, the bottom of the picture plays the bass, busy stretches bring in a beat, and stars and tiny dots sparkle as high bell notes. Every note is in the theme's own key, so there are no wrong notes: any picture sounds good, and a better picture sounds better. Each color leads to a different set of chords.
• Two feels. In song mode, the button after the die picks the feel: the moon is Dreamy (piano, soft chords and bells, slow, 80 beats a minute), the dancer is Groove (bass, drums and plucked notes, 100 beats a minute). − and + make either slower or faster (the turtle and the hare; the small number under them is the speed); a new feel starts at its own speed.
• The die. On an empty board, or one with only a few pegs, the die at the top draws a picture that always sounds good: a sunset over hills, the sea at night, mountains under the sun or a rainbow, a little different each time. Tap it again for the next one (at most once a second). It only fills empty holes, so it never takes a peg your child placed; Settings → Glow → Bring the picture back takes it off again.
• Zoom is part of the song. Zoomed in, the song plays only the part of the picture on the screen, spread over the same time, so small details become a tune of their own. Zoom back out for the whole picture.
• It keeps up. Draw while the song plays and soft bell notes ring in tune with it as the pegs go in; the song changes to follow the picture as you lift your finger, its chords and tune moving to the new ones at once; a new theme plays it in that theme's key.
• What lights up. A soft line of light sweeps the board as it plays, and the pegs that sing glow brighter as their notes play, so you can see the music come from the picture (not with Reduce Motion on; at Calm the line and the glow stay as gentle as before).
• Calm plays the song slower, softer and simpler, with fewer drums.
• The end of the picture. The first time a song plays through to the end of the picture after play is pressed, a gentle shimmer of light crosses the pegs from left to right, once (fainter at Calm; none with Reduce Motion).

The song is eight bars long and goes round until stop is pressed (play shows a square while it plays): then every note fades away at once, held chords too. With nobody touching the board, it fades out and stops after it has played through twice. The beat guides belong to the beat, so they hide while the note is lit.

Glow: the beat

Glow's board is also a beat. Each color is a sound (a kick, a clap, a closed and an open hi-hat, a bass and a melody); press play and a line of light sweeps the board from left to right, playing every peg it passes. One sweep is two bars: every two columns are a sixteenth note, so a mark in every fourth pair of columns is a beat, and a line drawn straight across plays every sixteenth. The higher a bass or melody mark sits, the higher its note. Two marks of one drum in the same pair of columns (a dab up high, another lower down) play as one hit, a little firmer.

• Beat guides. While the beat plays, faint rings mark the columns where each beat falls (a little brighter at the start of each bar) and fainter rings mark the "and" halfway between two beats, where hi-hats often go. The columns in between get none. The rings fade in when play is pressed and out when it stops; they never move or pulse. To have them show all the time, very faintly: Settings → More → Glow → Beat guides → Always.
• Starter beats. On an empty board, or one with only a few pegs, the die after the note-and-drum switch drops a ready-made beat with every hit in its place: kicks on the beats, claps on the backbeat, hi-hats on the "and"s, an open hi-hat and the bass on the sixteenths in between, and a few melody notes. Tap it again for the next style: four-on-the-floor techno, a broken beat, a slower head-nod hip-hop beat to rap or beatbox over, and a half-time beat. Each comes with its own speed and swing. The die only fills empty holes, so it never takes a peg your child placed, and it swaps the board at most once a second. It doesn't start the beat: that is still the play button. Once the board holds your child's own picture, the die goes away until the board is nearly empty again.
• Slower and faster. The turtle and the hare beside play step the speed down or up; the small number under them shows it, in beats a minute. A playing beat changes speed smoothly, from its next note. At Calm it never plays faster than 100 beats a minute, and + stops there.
• What lights up. The line of light shows where the beat is, and every peg it passes lights up a little as it plays (brighter at Everyday and Bright; at Calm as gentle as before; not with Reduce Motion on).
• Swing. Settings → More → Glow → Swing plays the sixteenths in between (every other pair of columns) a little late, for a laid-back, head-nodding feel: Straight, or 55, 60 or 66 percent. The starter beats set their own.
• Accents. A hit on a beat plays firmest, one on an "and" a little softer, and the ones in between softest, like a drummer's hand.

The speed, the swing and the brush are kept with the picture. Start fresh sets them back.

Saving a Glow beat

A grown-up can keep Glow's beat as a file, for example to finish it in a music app: open settings while Glow is on screen, then, under Save at the top, Save the beat…. The sheet shows the beat's speed and swing ("90 BPM, swing 60%."). Choose 2, 4 or 8 bars and the kind of file:

• WAV (best quality) or M4A (smaller): a sound file, and whether it is loop-ready (the end flows back into the start, so it repeats without a bump).
• MIDI: the notes themselves, for a music app. The drums are on channel 10 (kick, clap, closed and open hi-hat, by the standard drum map), the bass and the melody on channels of their own at the notes they played, each note as hard as it played, at the beat's speed and swing.

Tap Save… and answer the same grown-up check as EM8's (a multiplication written in words, typed on a number pad). The file is made on the phone, silently, then the phone's own Save to Files screen lets you choose where it goes. It is named like "Glow beat - 4 bars - 92 BPM", with nothing about who made it or when. The file always has Glow's standard sound and the beat's own speed, even at Calm, where the phone plays a fast beat more slowly and more softly.

Boredom Mode itself sends the file nowhere and keeps no copy. If you choose an online folder, the service behind that folder handles the file from then on.

Saving a Glow song

A grown-up can keep Glow's picture as a song, the same way: open settings while Glow is on screen, then, under Save at the top, Save the song…. The sheet shows the song's feel and speed ("Dreamy, 80 BPM."). Choose 4, 8 or 16 bars (the whole picture played over that many) and the kind of file: WAV or M4A (loop-ready or not), or MIDI, with the melody, the chords, the broken chords (Dreamy), the bass and the sparkles on channels of their own and the drums on channel 10. The same grown-up check comes first, then the phone's own Save to Files screen. The file is named like "Glow song

• Dreamy - 8 bars - 80 BPM", with nothing about who made it or when, and always has the standard sound, the whole picture and the song's own speed, even at Calm or zoomed in. Boredom Mode sends it nowhere and keeps no copy.

Recording your own sounds

Voice records a sound you make, a voice, a clap or a tap on the table, and plays it as a loop (below); Decks records one straight onto its record, to scratch it or play it back funny (below). EM8 plays every recording on its keys (higher and lower) and its pads, as My recordings; Beats can put one on a row, and Mix plays them wherever Beats and Voice do. Recording is off until a grown-up turns it on:

1. Open settings (press and hold the settings button), find Recording and turn it on.
2. Answer the grown-up check (the same multiplication in words as for saving a loop).
3. The first time, the iPhone asks whether Boredom Mode may use the microphone. This is the only permission Boredom Mode ever asks for, and it asks only now, after the check, never when a child taps something. Choose Allow. (If you choose Don't Allow, Recording stays off. To allow it later: the iPhone's Settings app → Privacy & Security → Microphone → turn on Boredom Mode, then turn Recording on again.) If the microphone is turned off for Boredom Mode later, in the iPhone's Settings, Recording stays on but the microphone buttons go, and Settings → Recording says so, with those steps one to a line.

Then, in Voice, hold the round button in the middle to record, and let go to stop. A ring around it runs down over the loop's length (the longest the take can be: 32 seconds at most), and a column of bars beside it shows how loud it hears you. It stops by itself at the loop's length, and whenever you leave Voice, open settings, lock the phone or a call comes in, keeping what it heard. The loop stops while it listens, so it doesn't record itself, and the new sound becomes the loop. A short tap only shows a quarter of the ring filling and going away again: hold it to record.

In EM8, choose Sample (the third button at the left): once there are recordings, My recordings is one of the kinds of sound. (Before version 1.1's round 10, EM8 had a microphone tile of its own; the recordings made with it are kept, and still play in EM8, Decks, Voice and Mix.)

In Decks, the microphone sits beside the sounds button (top left): hold it to record and let go to stop, while a ring of ten dots inside it goes out one a second. The new sound goes straight onto the record and plays once (not at Calm), ready to scratch, and the pictures under the sounds button play it back fast and high, slow and low, backward, with an echo or like a robot. A tap on the microphone puts the newest recording back on the record (before there are any, a quarter of its dots light up and go out again: hold it to record). Every recording is also on Decks' tray (newest first; with more than six, the last button there shows the next ones) and Mix's sample tray (the six newest).

Every recording is trimmed to the sound, and levelled so that a shout plays back no louder than a hum or the app's other sounds. The app's own sound pauses while the microphone listens, so it doesn't record itself.

What is kept, and where. Up to 16 recordings, each at most 32 seconds (a Voice loop's take; Decks' are at most 10) and about 260 KB, stay on this iPhone in Boredom Mode's own storage: not in iCloud or computer backups (so they don't move to a new phone), and Boredom Mode sends them nowhere. With 16 kept, holding the microphone only buzzes softly until you delete one. A loop keeps playing a recording it was made with, and a note of a deleted one is simply silent.

Settings → Recording lists them, newest first: ▶ plays one, the save button keeps a copy with the phone's own Save to Files screen (after the grown-up check again; it is named like "Recording 3", with nothing about who made it or when), and the bin deletes one. Delete all recordings deletes them all. Start fresh does not delete recordings. Turning Recording off hides the microphone and offers to delete the recordings; if you keep them, they still play in Voice, EM8, Decks and Mix until you delete them.

Voice: loops of your own

Voice plays a sound as a loop, with effects. It has two faces: Simple (the first time, a few big pictures and no numbers) and Studio (every control). The small Studio › or ‹ Simple at the top left swaps them, and Voice remembers the last one shown; a grown-up can also choose it in settings while Voice is on screen.

• Sounds. The row of pictures is what Voice can loop: the same sounds Decks has (a shout, a drum beat, a chord, a riser, a horn and a crackle, which the app makes, and three public-domain vinyl sounds: a scratch, a backspin and a rewind), and the family's recordings, newest first (each shows its outline and a small microphone). Tap one and it is the loop; stopped, you hear its first beats once.
• Recording. Voice records only once a grown-up has turned on Recording (above); until then the round button shows a padlock, and the sounds still loop with every effect. With Recording on, hold the round button and speak, sing or clap; it listens for at most the loop's length (32 seconds at most) and the take becomes the loop.
• Play. The triangle at the top left plays the loop and the square stops it. Nothing plays by itself, and it stops when you leave Voice. A change you make plays from the next bar.
• Length. On Simple, three lines: short, medium and long (1, 2 or 4 bars). On Studio, 1, 2, 4, 8 or 16 bars, at the music pages' tempo (the number beside play; Voice has no tempo of its own: the one chosen with − and + on Beats or Mix, else Mix's own, else Beats', else Glow's, else EM8's loop's), so a loop made here lands on Mix's bars. A loop is never longer than 32 seconds: at a slow tempo (or at Calm, which slows the tempo) the longest lengths aren't offered and fewer bars play, but the length chosen is kept for the next visit. Repeat lays the sound down on the beat and repeats it to fill the loop; Stretch stretches or squeezes it to fill the loop (by at most twice either way). A sound longer than the loop is cut at its end, with a short fade. The drum beat is always played at the loop's tempo.
• Effects (Simple). Four pictures: the bird is a high voice, the bear a low voice (a gentler step at Calm), the waves an echo, the arrow backward. Tap one to turn it on, again to turn it off. They are Studio's Pitch, Delay and REV, set for you.
• Chop (Studio). 4, 8 or 16 cut the loop into equal slices on the beat (at Calm, never shorter than an eighth note). In order plays them as they were, Shuffle in a new order, Stutter repeats some of them; press Shuffle or Stutter again for a new pattern. Tap a slice to hear it once; hold one to play it backward (hold again to turn it back). REV plays the whole loop backward.
• Knobs (Studio). Drag up or right to turn one up; double-tap to set it back. Pitch moves the sound up or down a semitone at a time, a whole octave each way, without changing its length. Grain breaks it into short grains and Spray scatters them. Filter is off in the middle; left darkens it, right thins it, with a gentle peak. Delay is an echo on a dotted eighth, Space a room, Pan left or right, Vol its volume. Every one is capped, and Calm caps the echo and the room lower.
• Tape stop. Hold the tape button (Stop on Studio) and the loop slows to a halt, its pitch falling with it, over the beats chosen beside the sounds on Studio (¼, ½, 1 or 2; at Calm always the gentlest, 2). Let go and it speeds back up, then carries on in time from the next bar.

Mix plays Voice's loop too, whether it is a recording or one of Voice's own sounds.

With VoiceOver, every control is a button or an adjustable knob (swipe up or down), each sound and effect picture says its name, each slice has a "Play backward" action, the round button has Record a sound and Stop recording (locked, it says a grown-up can turn on Recording), and the tape button holds and lets go.

Saving a Voice loop

A grown-up can keep Voice's loop as a sound file: open settings while Voice is on screen, then, under Save at the top, Save the loop…. Choose what to save:

• The loop: the loop as it plays, with every effect (pitch, grain, the slices, backward, the filter, the delay, the space, pan and volume), at its tempo and length now. It loops seamlessly.
• The recording: the take as it was recorded (or Voice's own sound as it is), with no effects.

Then WAV (best quality) or M4A (smaller). The same grown-up check comes first, then the phone's own Save to Files screen. The file is named like "Voice loop - 2 bars - 120 BPM" (or "Voice take"), with nothing about who made it or when, and always has the standard sound, even at Calm. Boredom Mode sends it nowhere and keeps no copy. Save the loop is greyed out until there is a loop: pick a sound or record one.

Decks: scratching

Decks is a record to scratch: a big record in the middle, its label turning while its sound plays.

• Tap the record to play its sound from the start (its first loud moment). A short sound plays to its end and the record stops; a loop plays round and round until nobody has touched Decks for half a minute (a quarter of a minute at Calm; a finger still on the strip or a pad counts as a touch), then fades out.
• Drag round the record, the way a hand moves a record: clockwise plays the sound forward, the other way backward, as fast as the finger goes (a quick flick plays it higher and quicker). Only the movement round the middle counts. Hold still and the sound holds where it is; small movements back and forth are "baby scratches".
• Let go and the record comes back up to speed and plays on.
• Repeat (the three pads at the bottom left, held): the sound repeats a quarter, an eighth or a sixteenth of a beat from where it is, on the beat (one dot, two dots, four dots: the more dots, the quicker); let go and it plays on. Not at Calm, where the cut takes the whole bottom row.
• Cut (the big pad at the bottom right, held): silent at once, while the record keeps turning. Pressing it on and off while scratching chops the scratch up.
• The strip at the right, from the sun (bright) down to the moon (dark), makes the sound darker, and the record's label darkens with it. It is bright again each time Decks opens.
• Tricks (the row of pictures under the sounds button): fast and high, slow and low, backward, with an echo, or like a robot. A tap plays the sound that way at once, and it stays that way (the picture filled in) until the filled one is tapped again, which plays it plain, or until you leave Decks. They are made for a voice just recorded, and work on any sound. Hold a trick instead (half a second) to hear what it does: the sound plays plain for a second, then with the trick for a second, then the record stops and whatever was on before is back. Nothing is switched.

The button at the top left shows the sound on the record; tap it for the tray. The first row holds six sounds made by the app itself (no voices or recordings of anyone): a shouted "hey", a drum beat (on the hip-hop machine's drums), a chord, a riser, a horn and a vinyl crackle. Below it: four vinyl recordings (a scratch, a backspin, a rewind and a hiss), a row of six hits from each drum kit (the hip-hop and techno machines the app makes, the hip-hop row with its long Boom Kick, which pitches up and down under a hand; then the drum kit, the studio kit and the electronic kit, real recordings but for the electronic kit's kick, which the app makes), and, once a grown-up has made some with Recording, all your recordings, newest first: with more than six, the last button in their row (three dots) shows the next ones, and the tray always opens on the one on the record. A sound your child picks goes on the record and plays (not at Calm). The turtle and the hare at the bottom of the tray set the beat of the repeats and the echo: a slow hip-hop pace (90 beats a minute) or a quicker techno one (124). Under a playing record a faint vinyl hiss plays (not at Calm; a grown-up can turn it off in Decks' settings).

Every sound is evened out to the same loudness (the drum hits a little under the rest, because a scratch or a repeat plays their loudest part over and over), and none is louder than the other toys' loudest moments, with any trick. Decks never plays by itself: only a tap, a finger on the record, a repeat, a trick or a picked sound starts it, and every sound stops the moment Decks leaves the screen. At Calm the record turns more slowly and more softly, the tricks stay close to the normal speed, and there is no repeat and no hiss.

Decks keeps the sound on the record and the beat for next time (a trick is never kept). Start fresh sets them back.

Mix: everything together

Mix plays what was made on the other pages at once, as one song. It has two faces:

• Simple (where it opens): four big lanes, Glow, EM8, Beats and Voice, each with a small moving picture of what that page holds over a tall level. Drag a lane up for louder or down for quieter, tap it to mute it (tap again to bring it back). Play and Show are at the top, and one glowing bar under them shows how loud the whole mix is. No knobs.
• Studio (tap Studio › under the header): the whole mixing desk described below. ‹ SIMPLE at its foot goes back. The page opens on whichever was used last; a grown-up can choose in Settings → Mix ("Mix opens on").

A lane (or strip) whose page has nothing in it yet shows that page's picture and "tap to make one": a tap opens the page. With nothing made anywhere, play does nothing but make those empty lanes pulse, so there is never a lit stop button over silence.

Show plays the mix full screen, for showing someone: each lane's picture large, swelling gently with its sound, every control hidden. A tap comes back to the page (the mix keeps playing), and the house still goes home. It is dimmer at Calm, and nothing swells with Reduce Motion on.

The desk (Studio) has five strips:

• Glow: the picture on Glow's board, played the way Glow plays it: as its beat (the same sounds, in the theme's notes) or as its song (the whole picture, at the mix's speed; its own echo is left to EM8's).
• EM8: EM8's loop, each note with the sound it was played with, and EM8's echo.
• Beats: the Beats page's drum beat, at the mix's speed (and, with no Glow picture in the mix, with Beats' swing). A mix saved before this version keeps its 16 squares: they become Beats' first row.
• Voice: the Voice page's loop at the mix's speed, a bar at a time on the mix's bars, panned as Voice pans it, once there is one.
• Master: the whole mix.

It plays on. Press play and go to Glow, EM8, Beats or Voice (with the page's name at the top right, or a strip's name): the mix keeps playing, on one clock at Mix's tempo, and comes back to Mix still playing. There is one play button for the whole studio: while you stay on the music pages, their play button is the mix's, marked with a small Mix. It shows the mix playing; pressing it stops the mix everywhere, and pressing it again plays the mix again (never that page on its own, so nothing fights). Once you go home or to another toy, each page's play is its own again. What you change there, a step on Beats, a peg on Glow, a note in EM8's loop, a knob on Voice, joins the mix within a second. Live playing (EM8's keys, a Beats sound tapped in its tray) plays over it. The mix stops on the home screen, on any other toy, when Settings opens or the app goes to the background, when a recording starts, and by itself after a minute with no touch anywhere (half a minute at Calm), as on its own page. The effects switch off as you leave Mix.

Like the other music pages, Mix names everything: each strip, and every control. A channel strip reads top to bottom the way the sound travels:

• High, Mid and Low turn the treble, the middle and the bass up (a little) or down (a lot); turning one up only changes the tone and never makes the mix louder than the loudness limit.
• Filter: in the middle it does nothing; to the left it takes away the highs (a muffled, underwater sound), to the right the lows (a thin, radio sound).
• Pan moves the strip to the left or the right speaker.
• FX sends some of the strip to the effect (below).
• Mute silences the strip at once (pressed again very quickly, it turns back a moment later).
• The fader: grab its cap and slide it; the top is the strip as loud as its own toy plays it, the bottom silent. The number under it is the level in decibels. Beside it a meter shows what the strip plays.

To turn a knob, drag up or down on it (a sideways swipe across the desk doesn't move anything). Hold a finger still on it for half a second first for small steps. Double-tap any knob or fader to put it back. With VoiceOver, swipe up or down on a knob or fader.

The Master strip has its own fader and meter, LOUD (about how loud the mix is now) and HELD (how much the app's safety limit is holding it down; it is always on and no setting goes past it).

FX (the bar under the strips, or FX at the top) is one effect at a time: Echo (repeats that get quieter and darker), Ping-pong (repeats that swap speakers), Filter (a sweep that opens and closes) and Room (a space around the sound). Pick how many beats it lasts, how much effect against the clean sound (Wet / Dry) and its own knob, then tap ON; or hold ON for an effect that lasts as long as the finger is down. The picture shows what the effect does; swipe it to change the beats. Effects never switch themselves on and are off each time Mix opens. At Calm the echoes are shorter and the room smaller.

Moves (automation): press REC at the top, play, and move any knob or fader; the mix remembers the move and repeats it every time round, and several things can move at once. Holding a control while REC is on records over what was there. AUTO shows each remembered move as a line over the loop: tap the line to add a point, drag a point, double-tap one to remove it; switch a line OFF to hear the mix without it, or CLEAR it. If you move a control by hand while not recording, your hand wins until you press RE-ENABLE.

Mix reads what is on the other pages each time it opens, so a change there shows up in Mix. A strip whose page has nothing in it shows the invitation to make something there in place of its knobs. On a phone with room for all five strips side by side, Glow's and EM8's names open those pages (they show ↗; not while Mix is pinned with Stay on, or that page is hidden from the home screen); on a smaller phone the strips sit two to a row in a list that scrolls.

Everything plays at one tempo: the one your child picks with − and + here or on Beats, otherwise Glow's (its song's or its beat's), otherwise EM8's loop's nearest. Glow's swing swings the whole mix. The mix is as long as its longest lane, and every lane starts again with it. The strips share one loudness: all of them together are no louder than the loudest toy on its own, and muting one never makes the others louder.

Mix makes no sound until play is pressed. It stops when your child leaves it (another toy, the house, settings, or the phone locking), and after a minute with nobody touching it (half a minute at Calm) it fades out and stops; it never starts again by itself. At Calm it plays no faster than 100 beats a minute, and with Glow's song in it no faster than the song's own calm pace (72 for Dreamy, 90 for Groove): + goes dim where there is no faster to go.

Mix keeps its own choices (each strip's level, tone, filter, pan, effect amount and mute, the master, the effect's settings, the remembered moves, the beat steps and the tempo), not a copy of anything made on the other pages. Start fresh sets it back to a new mix.

Beats: a drum beat, step by step

Beats is a step sequencer in the same dark, precise look as Mix's tools. It starts with four rows (a kick, a snare, a clap and a hat, all made by the app) of 16 steps each, one bar. Each row has its own color, four clearly different ones for the drums (violet, orange, teal and rose, then sky and gold for a fifth and sixth row), and within a row each beat of four steps leans a little differently, its first step the brightest, so the beats read at a glance. Lit squares glow, and each one lights up and swells a little as it plays.

Beats has two faces, as every music page will:

• Simple (where it opens): four rows of eight big pads that fill the page, steps 1–8, with Play and the die at the top and undo under the die. Tap a row's dot (beside its sound's short name) for another drum of its kind, one from each kit. While it plays, the pads light up where the beat is. STUDIO › (top left, under play) opens Studio.
• Studio: every control, below. ‹ SIMPLE, in the same place, goes back. The page remembers the face it was last on; a grown-up can pin either one in settings.

On both:

• Steps 9–16 follow 1–8, so a beat made on the first eight squares plays the whole bar. Change a step in 9–16 (in Studio) and they go their own way; the link between the switch's halves shows which, and a tap on it links them again (copying 1–8 over 9–16).
• The die drops a new beat that always fits: a kick on the one, a snare or clap on the backbeat and hats keeping time, in the flavour of one of a few styles, each with its own kit. It starts playing (but at Calm, where only play does). Your child asked for it, so nothing is ever pre-filled.
• Undo takes back the last change: a step, a sound, the die, a new row, even Start fresh. Tap it again to go further back (this visit's changes; the tempo stays as it is).
• The first time a beat goes round whole, a soft wave of light crosses the grid, once for that beat (dimmer at Calm, none with Reduce Motion).

In Studio:

• A step: tap a square to turn it on or off. Eight steps show at a time so every square stays big enough for a finger (four at a time on the smallest phones); the switch at the top changes which, and where there is room the strip beside it shows all 16, with a thin line gliding along it while the beat plays. Hold a square for a moment to make it an accent (a dark bar on the square): it plays as the full hit, and a plain step a little softer. Hold it again to take the accent away. A square tapped twice quickly turns back a moment later (it never flashes, and the second tap is never lost).
• A row: its name opens a tray of sounds to choose from, drums first: the hip-hop machine, the techno machine, the drum kit, the studio kit and the electronic kit, each with its kick, snare, clap and hats first; then Decks' sounds and the vinyl sounds; then the family's recordings if a grown-up has turned Recording on. Every sound has its short name under it ("Kick", "Open hat", "Rec 3"). Tap one to hear it and give it to the row; drag up and down to see more; Done (or a tap outside) closes it. (Decks' own tray keeps its look.) Beside the name, a small speaker is the row's level: a tap turns it down to −3, then −6 dB (shown as a number once it is turned down), then back. M mutes it. + row adds a row, up to six; when they don't all fit on the screen, a button at the bottom turns to the next rows.
• Play (top left) plays the bar round and round. − and + step the tempo through the same speeds as Glow and Mix, and the tempo is shared with Mix: change it on either page and the other follows. Swing goes round 0 % (straight), 25, 50, 75 and 100 % (a full shuffle) for a bouncier feel. A beat saved with an earlier build's swing (55 or 60 %) plays at the nearest new stop (25 or 75 %).
• The page's name (top right, "Beats") opens a short menu of the music pages, Glow, EM8, Beats, Voice and Mix, each with its color: tap one to go there; its last item, Guide, walks through the page. Glow, EM8, Voice and Mix have the same menu.

All the rows share one loudness: six rows on every step are no louder than the loudest toy on its own, and muting one row never makes the others louder. Beats makes no sound until play (or the die) is pressed; it stops when your child leaves it, and after a minute with nobody touching it (half a minute at Calm) it fades out and stops. At Calm it plays no faster than 100 beats a minute, a step tapped on is not previewed, and the squares' light is dimmer. With Reduce Motion on, the squares don't light or swell as they play, there is no wave, and the line is fainter.

Beats keeps its rows (each one's sound, steps, accents, level and mute), the swing, whether 9–16 follow 1–8, and the tempo once one was chosen there. A mix from an earlier 1.1 build brings its sample steps across with the same sound and the same steps: a kick, snare, clap or hat takes that row's place, and any other sound (the chord, say) comes in as a fifth row under the four drums. Start fresh sets Beats back to its four empty rows.

Saving a mix

A grown-up can keep the mix as one file: open settings while Mix is on screen, then, under Save at the top, Save the mix…. Choose the length (the mix's own, or 8 or 16 bars when that is longer; the mix repeats to fill it) and the kind of file:

• WAV (best quality) or M4A (smaller): one sound file of every lane playing together, with the desk as it is (tone, filters, the effect if it is on, the master and the remembered moves), and whether it is loop-ready.
• MIDI: the notes, with a track for each lane's part (Glow's song: its melody, chords, broken chords, bass and sparkles). Drums (Glow's, EM8's drum pads, and a drum on the Beats strip) are on channel 10 by the standard drum map; the other parts on channels of their own, at the mix's speed and swing.

A muted lane is left out of both kinds. The same grown-up check comes first, then the phone's own Save to Files screen. The file is named like "Mix - 8 bars - 110 BPM", with nothing about who made it or when, and always has the standard sound and the mix's own speed, even at Calm. Boredom Mode sends it nowhere and keeps no copy.

Feel: Calm, Everyday, Bright

One control changes the whole app.

• Calm: quieter sound, softer vibration, gentler color, and nothing starts by itself: nothing unexpected happens on its own. Tap the hand in a toy to show your child how it's played (the line under the picker says so). The toys still answer tilt (turn that off with Tilt effects, below), and popped domes still refill. Sounds are softer and darker too: Glow's beat is gentler and never faster than 100 beats a minute, its song slower, softer and with fewer drums, and Water makes no bubbles (a finger in the water is a soft swirl at every level, and at Calm the water sloshing on its own makes none either) and shorter glugs. Decks' record turns more slowly and more softly, its tricks stay close to the normal speed, and it doesn't repeat a sound on the beat. EM8 is darker and softer (its echo quieter, darker and shorter), plays at most four notes at once, starts its loop at a slower tempo (never faster than 120 beats a minute), ticks more softly and lower while recording, and stops an untouched loop after half a minute (a long, slow loop plays through once first). Prism is hidden. On the home screen nothing happens in the pictures by itself; they only drift, and the slow light that crosses the pictures at the other levels stays off. The "show me how" hand never plays by itself; it waits for a tap. Chaos, if a grown-up switches it on, is still a game with its own timed events at every level.
• Everyday: every toy but Prism. Each toy shows how it's played, silently, the first time it opens.
• Bright: louder, stronger vibration, bigger and more colorful bursts, and Prism. As at Everyday, each toy shows how it's played the first time it opens.

Choosing which toys appear

• Hide a toy: Settings → Pages shown, turn it off. Hidden toys leave the home screen, and fewer toys make bigger pictures. At least one toy always stays.
• Stay on one toy: open the toy you want, then Settings → Pages shown → Stay on [toy]. The app opens straight into it and the house button disappears. The settings button stays, so you can undo it, and so does the hand, which shows your child how the toy is played.

Guided Access: lock the phone to Boredom Mode

Guided Access is built into iPhone. It keeps the phone in one app until a grown-up enters a passcode, and can switch off parts of the screen.

1. On the iPhone, open Settings → Accessibility → Guided Access and turn it on.
2. Tap Passcode Settings → Set Guided Access Passcode and choose a code (or use Face ID / Touch ID).
3. Open Boredom Mode and choose the toy. To stop tilt, turn off Tilt effects in Boredom Mode's settings now (see Tilt); that is the sure way.
4. Triple-click the side button (or the Home button on phones that have one). Guided Access opens.

5. Optional: circle parts of the screen with your finger to switch them off.

   • One toy only: circle the house button (bottom left), the only way out of a toy by touch, and the settings button (bottom right), since a long press there opens settings, where toys can be hidden. If your child uses VoiceOver, Switch Control or Voice Control, circling may not be enough (VoiceOver's escape gesture goes home, for example): before step 4, also turn on Stay on [toy] in Boredom Mode's settings, which hides the house and stops every way home.
   • Any toy but never Settings: circle only the settings button.

   Tap Options to turn off the side and volume buttons, or to set a time limit. (Guided Access's own Motion option stops the screen rotating and shake gestures; it may not stop the toys' tilt, so use Boredom Mode's switch for that.)

6. Tap Start.

To end it, triple-click the side button again and enter your code.

Sound and the silent switch

Boredom Mode follows your iPhone's ring/silent switch (on newer phones, silent mode set with the Action button or Control Center). On silent, Boredom Mode makes no sound, on purpose, so it never surprises a room. Vibration still works.

To have sound even on silent: Settings → Sound & Touch → Play sound in Silent mode.

Boredom Mode plays alongside other audio, such as music in the car, rather than stopping it.

Tilt

Several toys respond to tilting the phone: sand slides, water sloshes, the light moves. If that is unwanted (lying down, a bumpy road, a child who finds it confusing), turn off Settings → Sound & Touch → Tilt effects. Everything then behaves as if the phone were lying flat.

Trip mode

For long rides: Settings → Sound & Touch → Trip mode. Boredom Mode runs at a lower frame rate, reads the motion sensors less often and caps the volume lower, to save battery and keep the phone cooler. It also drops to the lower frame rate and the slower motion readings on its own whenever the iPhone is in Low Power Mode or getting hot.

Whatever the setting, Domes, Grain, Water, Glow, Keys, EM8 and Decks slow their screen updates right down, and read the motion sensors less often, once they have settled with nobody touching them, until the next touch or tilt. A phone left sitting on one of them uses little battery.

Reduce Motion and flashing

Boredom Mode is designed so that, in every toy, theme and feel level, nothing flashes more than three times a second over a large part of the screen, and nothing flashes saturated red over a large part of the screen at all. Screen recordings of the toys are checked against both rules before release. Two moments get particular care:

• Chaos. Popping one of Chaos's urgent domes sets off a burst that stays clear of saturated red.
• Switching toys. Moving between toys is a short cross-fade, never a slide, with or without Reduce Motion. Boredom Mode also limits how quickly it will switch again, whether from the home screen or the house, so tapping back and forth between a dark toy and a light one doesn't flicker the whole screen.

Boredom Mode also honors Reduce Motion: either the iPhone's own setting (Settings → Accessibility → Motion) or Boredom Mode's switch (Settings → Sound & Touch → Reduce Motion). While the iPhone's own is on, Boredom Mode's switch shows on and can't be turned off. With Reduce Motion on:

• Domes. A new sheet fades in instead of inflating, and clearing a sheet sends no ring across it. Pop bursts are dimmer. Special domes glow steadily instead of pulsing.
• Chaos. A missed dome doesn't shake the screen or flash its edges, popping an urgent dome sets off no burst, urgent domes hold still instead of pulsing, and the streak counter holds steady instead of breathing. The shrinking ring around an urgent dome stays, because it is the only sign of how long is left.
• Grain. A freshly raked tray fades in instead of sweeping across. The sand stays put when the phone tilts and its light holds still; fast strokes fling no dust; smoothing sends out no rings; no breeze crosses the tray.
• Water. Ripples die away sooner, and no drop falls on its own when the toy opens.
• Glow. Pegs simply appear, and fade away, instead of popping through the board. Clearing the picture is one gentle fade instead of the pegs popping loose in a sweep, and a newly chosen color moves into place at once instead of lifting. Pegs the beat or the song plays don't swell; the play line still glides, softly. A starter beat's or the die's pegs simply appear; play's glow doesn't breathe; the song's shimmer at the end of the picture, and the pegs' dance in show mode, don't happen (the music and the show still do); and the die, the song's feel button, the show button and the zoom map appear and go at once instead of fading; the beat guides still fade gently in and out (they never move). Zooming back out (the map, a two-finger double tap) is always a gentle fade, never a moving zoom, with or without Reduce Motion; a pinch follows your fingers, and a fast one blurs the picture rather than letting it flicker past.
• Keys. The bars don't dip or ripple when struck, no sparks drift up at the end of a song, and the mode switch, the sound buttons and the next-note marker jump straight to place instead of gliding.
• Decks. The record's label holds still while it plays (a small light at the record's lower left shows it playing), and the tray appears and goes at once instead of fading.
• EM8. Keys and pads don't dip, the sound picture keeps one height, the die doesn't tumble, and the lab's moving dots are hidden. The loop grid doesn't turn its own pages, the playing line steps instead of gliding, and the beat dots light only during the count-in. Explain's pictures hold still: an envelope shows the stage explained, with no dot riding it.
• Mix. The meters move ten times a second instead of thirty and show no peak line; remembered moves still move the knobs.
• Beats. The playing line is fainter, and the squares don't swell as they play.
• Home screen. The pictures hold still.
• Show me how. Each gesture is a still picture (the hand where it starts and an arrow along its path, or the phone tipped with two arrows) that fades in and out.
• Grain's tool strip. The marker under the chosen tool jumps instead of sliding.
• Everywhere. Vibrations are softer.
• Prism is removed from the home screen.

Reduce Motion calms the effects; it doesn't stop the toys working. Domes still pop, water still sloshes when the phone tilts, and Decks still scratches. To stop every toy responding to tilt, turn off Tilt effects (Tilt).

Prism is the most visually intense toy: a liquid whose color shifts as it moves. It only appears at Bright, and never with Reduce Motion on. To remove it, choose Calm or Everyday, turn on Reduce Motion, or turn Prism off under Settings → Pages shown.

A small number of people can have seizures triggered by flashing lights or moving patterns. No screen can be promised safe for everyone. If your child has ever had a seizure or reacts to light or patterns, talk to their doctor before use, and keep Prism hidden.

Domes: Zen and Chaos

Domes starts in Zen: pop at your own pace; the sheet never runs out.

Grown-ups can switch Domes to Chaos (Settings, while Domes is open → Chaos). Chaos is a timed game with a score. It waits for a tap on the ▶ button before it starts, pauses when settings are open, and only ever runs on Domes. When a round ends, tap the circular arrow to play again or the leaf to go back to Zen. The best score is kept on the phone.

Start fresh

Settings → Start fresh clears everything made in the toys: the carved sand, the popped domes, Glow's picture, Keys' song, EM8's loop and saved sounds, the mix, Beats' rows and Decks' record. It asks first ("Clear everything made in every toy?"). Settings themselves are kept, and so are recordings: delete those in Settings → Recording.

Accessibility

• Reduce Motion and Guided Access: see above.
• No reading needed: toys are chosen by picture; nothing a child needs depends on words.
• Larger text: the settings sheet follows your text size.
• Light and dark: the settings sheet follows the theme chosen under Theme (light on Clay and Wrap, dark on Ember and Dusk), whatever the iPhone's own Dark Mode, so its arrows and switches always show.
• Touch targets are at least 44 points.
• VoiceOver: designed for, and still being checked on real iPhones. Each toy's name is read out when it opens, and its surface carries a short spoken description of what to do. In Domes each dome is meant to be its own item (double-tap to pop it). EM8 has its own items too: every control (each one's hint says what it does, in the same words as EM8's Explain), the rows of keys (touched directly; with Switch Control each key is a button), the pads, and each square of the loop grid (activate to add or remove a note; a note offers Longer and Shorter). Every other toy is one surface you touch directly, meant to be playable with plain taps; in Grain, the tool strip's buttons are also actions on it (Carve, Eraser, Thick brush or Thin brush) and its value says which are chosen. Glow's, Decks' and Keys' buttons are also actions on that surface (swipe up or down): in Glow, Play as a song or Play as a beat, the song's feel (Dreamy song, Groove song), the brush, Die picture (or Starter beat), Show the picture and Back to drawing, and Zoom in and Zoom out too, and its value says, in a few words, what the picture holds and where (and how far it is zoomed in); in Decks, Cue, the five tricks, the next sound, Slower, Faster, Repeat (a bar of it; not at Calm), Cut (a beat of it) and, with Recording on, Record a sound (it listens until Stop recording, 10 seconds at most); in Keys, while a grown-up leaves the switch on screen, Song mode or Free play, the two sounds not playing (of Chimes, Piano and Drums) and, on drums, Next drum kit. The hand button is "Show me how", and reads the toy's description aloud. If something doesn't work the way this says, please tell us.

Troubleshooting

No sound. Check the silent switch (see above), the volume buttons, and Settings → Sound & Touch → Sound. Calm and Trip mode are quieter by design.

No vibration. Check Settings → Sound & Touch → Haptics in Boredom Mode, and that vibration isn't turned off in your iPhone's Sounds & Haptics settings.

The house button is gone. "Stay on [toy]" is on, or only one toy is switched on. Hold the settings button and look under Toys.

A ghost hand appeared over a toy. That is the "show me how" demonstration, shown once the first time each toy is opened (and whenever the hand button is tapped; a toy set to Stay on shows it once more). It makes no sound and changes nothing; touch the toy to stop it.

A ring round the hand button. At Calm, and on a toy set to Stay on, a still ring marks the hand until it has been tapped in that toy, so you know where "show me how" is. It never moves; tap the hand once and it goes.

Grain won't carve. The eraser is chosen: tap the finger at the left of the strip at the top.

Prism is missing. Prism needs Bright and Reduce Motion off (both Boredom Mode's switch and the iPhone's). It may also be hidden under Toys.

Something my child made is gone. "Start fresh" clears it (EM8's sounds and loop included), and deleting the app deletes it. It is never stored anywhere else, so we can't restore it. In EM8, Undo brings back a loop that was just cleared.

New notes in EM8's loop sound like another of its sounds. A loop keeps four sounds at most; after that, new notes use the loop's closest sound (the ring beside the play button is dashed). Take out every note of a sound you don't need (or clear the loop) to make room.

There's no microphone in Voice or Decks. Recording is off (Settings → Recording), or the iPhone doesn't allow Boredom Mode the microphone (Settings → Recording says so, and how to allow it). In Voice the microphone is the round button in the middle; in Decks it is beside the sounds button. EM8 has no microphone of its own: it plays what Voice and Decks record. With 16 recordings kept, holding the microphone only buzzes softly: delete one in Settings → Recording.

A recording is silent or cut short. It keeps only the sound, trimmed of the quiet before and after, and nothing at all if it heard nothing (try closer to the bottom of the phone). It stops at the loop's length in Voice (32 seconds at most) and at 10 seconds in Decks, and when another app, a call or a headset plugged in or out takes the microphone.

EM8's loop stopped by itself. It stops after about a minute with nobody touching EM8 (half a minute at Calm, but never before a long, slow loop has played through once), even while recording, and whenever EM8 leaves the screen. Tap play to start it again; what was recorded is kept.

After updating, a new toy appeared although I had hidden all but one. Toys added in an update (EM8, Voice, Beats and Mix in version 1.1) start switched on. Hold the settings button and switch them off under Toys, or turn on Stay on [toy] to keep your child in one toy.

EM8 has no loop buttons or grid. Settings (while EM8 is open) → EM8 → Loop: Show. The loop is Studio's: on Simple (tap Studio › at the top left), "Always Simple" and "Just keys" there is none.

"Save the loop" is greyed out. There is nothing in the loop's bars yet: record or draw a loop in EM8 first. (A moment after launch it may also still be getting ready; the note under it says so.)

"Save the beat" or "Save the song" is greyed out. The board is empty: put some pegs on it first (the die at the top gives you a picture, or in Beat mode a beat, in one tap).

"Save the mix" is greyed out. Every lane is empty or muted: make a beat in Glow or Beats or a loop in EM8 or Voice, and unmute a strip with something in it.

Glow's die is gone. It only shows on an empty or nearly empty board, so it can't change a picture your child made. Wipe the board (the eraser, two fingers, or Settings → More → Glow → Clear picture): it comes back.

Glow's controls have gone. That is show mode, for showing the picture: tap the lit show button at the top to bring them back.

Glow plays a tune, not a beat (or the other way round). The note and drum switch at the top, after the turtle and the hare, picks: the note plays the picture as a song, the drum as a beat. Settings → More → Glow → Play as does the same.

Glow's picture looks cut off, or two fingers won't wipe. The board is zoomed in (the little map at the top shows it). Tap the map, or tap twice with two fingers, to see the whole picture; at full size two fingers moving together wipe again.

Where do the piano, drum, water and sand sounds come from? Keys' piano and drums, EM8's Grand piano, Drum kit, Studio kit and Electronic kit, the brook and the glugs in Water, and the swish of the sand in Grain are real recordings, all but the Electronic kit's five kicks. They are in the public domain (free for anyone to use), they are part of the app, and nothing is downloaded to play them. The techno and hip-hop drum machines and the Electronic kit's kicks are made by the app itself, from its own synthesizer, each time it starts, and so are every one of EM8's picture sounds, the Boom Kick, Boom Bass, Bloop Organ and Fat Bass among them: none of them is a recording of any instrument.

EM8 sounds muffled, short or full of echo. The sweep, length and echo are kept for next time. Drag the picture back to the middle tick (and down), turn the LENGTH knob back to 0 and the ECHO knob down (a double tap on either puts it back), or use Settings (while EM8 is open) → EM8 → Back to the first sound.

EM8's picture sounds changed after the update. Version 1.1's second build has eight new, simpler electronic sounds; a later build tuned the Squelch Bass (a sharper, more resonant sweep) and added the Boom Bass, Bloop Organ and Fat Bass to the sound lab's first page. Sounds you saved in the four slots, and the loop's sounds, play as they were.

The phone got warm. Turn on Trip mode. If it still gets hot, tell us your iPhone model and which toy was open.

The screen moves when I tilt. That's the tilt effect. Turn off Tilt effects.

iPad. Boredom Mode is designed for iPhone. It also installs on iPad, where it runs the iPhone version in an iPhone-shaped window rather than filling the larger screen. iPads can't vibrate, so the toys don't vibrate there. If something looks or behaves oddly on an iPad, please tell us which model.

Reporting a problem

Please tell us:

• your iPhone (or iPad) model and iOS version (Settings → General → About),
• which toy, theme and feel level were on,
• what happened just before, and whether it happens again.

Boredom Mode sends us nothing automatically, so your description is how we find out. Please don't include your child's name or photos.

support@boredommode.com