Over the years, Duolingo has introduced countless creative growth hacks, but they still manage to surprise me with some of the smartest uses of iOS permissions. Their latest one uses Screen Time to lock selected apps until you complete your daily Duolingo session. What makes it brilliant is that... every app icon you block effectively becomes free ad inventory for Duolingo. Instead of just owning their own icon on your home screen, they’re temporarily taking over every icon tied to your distractions. An incredibly clever distribution mechanic 👏show more

If only they put as much thought into designing the lessons so you actually learn the language effectively.

Clever and I now use Duolingo early in the day instead of the late night, in-bed, stressful streak-saving session.

Hahaha it’s actually making me feel super anxious in the evening

You and me both. It’s like an “ugh I forgot I need to do my streak…” right as I’m going to bed. But this feature changed that. I check it off super early in the day.

It’s meant to be for learning a language and all Duolingo teaches you is dark patterns for mobile apps.

Cool mechanic, but small correction. AFAIK. Duolingo never sees which apps you block. iOS Screen Time API is privacy-preserving by design, the app selection goes through Apple's picker and returns opaque tokens. It's more "tool to block yourself" than source for Duolingo's ad

I love this. The numbers speak for themselves: zero CAC, full attention capture. That's how you build a moat in mobile without spending on acquisition.

Amazing ! if only i was that good in learning new languages 😂

Duolingo mi je danas ponudio da podelim svoj novi nivo Španskog na LinkedInu 😔

Meni je sam ubacio u Reminder app da uradim Duolingo. Interesantno mi je jer malo postaje previše, svuda su bukvalno i kao možda to smori ljude

Sledeće nam nudi Claude skill.

Inače ubi me ako razumem kako je ovaj post otišao u viral iako ga niko nije reshareovao. Tvoj komentar 100%

Lol, mora da je onaj update od pre neku nedelju što gura multilingual sadržaj.

Interesting, is it legal)

Yeah, a lot of learning apps are using the same to push you to do daily lessons

pretty cool use of the feature

This is genius

they're leveraging the exact thing people grumble about: time spent on their phone, and turning it into a constraint for better behavior. that's some smart psychology at play.

Just constantly learn from others u will be like then

so many apps are doing this

Clever malware.

When I heard about it I also thought; RIP all indiehacker screentime app lock apps 🤣

it is clever. but not the way how to learn lang

Fantastic work by their team!

People are probably locking their banking apps too, because their stock not doing well today 😂 $DUOL