Your smartphone might be the most distracting device that you own. It’s constantly vying for your attention, and always there whenever you feel the urge to doomscroll. It’s easy to spend hours every day fidgeting with your phone.
So what if this time could be more productive, creative, and less anxiety-inducing? Fidget apps and other apps that function like them might not be the best use of your time, but they can still serve a purpose, whether that’s soothing your nerves, chilling you out, or just giving you something to do that isn’t scrolling a feed.
1
Tappy
Tappy is a self-described “self care fidgeter” that is designed to reduce stress and anxiety by providing an outlet for your nervous energy. The app features a wellness tracker where you can log moods and activities complete with affirmations, a mindfulness portal with meditations and relaxing sounds, plus breathing exercises. But most relevant to this list is the impressive collection of fidget toys.
You’ll find these all on one tab, complete with haptic and audio feedback. There are simple buttons to toggle, wheels and dials to turn, sketch pads that combine motion and haptics, physics-based activities that respond to your touch, a “clicky” compass, and other toys that are hard to describe but oh so satisfying to play with.
Most of this functionality is free, though there is a Tappy Plus membership to unlock toys like a fidget spinner and bubble wrap (you can try these out before you buy) in addition to the app’s other wellness-focused features. There’s also an arcade with games like Snake, Tic Tac Toe, and more. You can unlock a year of Tappy Plus for $19.99, which isn’t a bad price if you want to support the developers.
2
Fluid Simulation
Fluid Simulation, or just Fluid as it appears on my iPhone, is a stunningly beautiful physics toy that I’ve been messing with for years. I’ve always had a bit of a thing for these sorts of toys, and Fluid Simulation is one I keep coming back to. Simply drag your finger across the screen to watch the simulation play out.
You get eight presets for free, and the ability to tweak and create your own using the included sliders and toggles. There’s a lot to dig into here, and a random button that can generate completely new presets. The app supports multi-touch inputs and looks especially impressive on my iPhone 13 Pro’s HDR display. It’s also one of the few apps on this list that is available on Android.
You can currently unlock the app for life via a $0.69 subscription which the developer says you can cancel “at any time and keep full version forever.”
3
I Love Hue
I Love Hue is less of a fidget app and more of a fidget puzzle. The aim is to arrange the hues in order, from light to dark or pale to saturated. It’s a really chilled-out little game that you’ll appreciate if you like the idea of restoring logical order to a pattern. The app won’t necessarily challenge you until you move on to the later levels.
There’s nothing particularly tactile about this one, no haptic feedback of any kind, but the app is free to play all the way through with adverts. New levels are unlocked using prisms, with the option to buy more via in-app purchase. Spending any amount of money in the shop will also remove the in-game advertisements.
I Love Hue is also available on Android.
4
Triple A Touch Visualizer
There are heaps of particle simulators on the App Store, and Triple A is just one of them. The app combines five styles of interaction from other apps made by the same developer into a single interface. Truth be told, there’s not a huge amount of difference between the five effects though there are a few additional settings to tweak.
In essence, this is a reactive light show. Swipe your fingers on the canvas and watch the lights move. Put two or three fingers down at once and watch different effects play out. Change the settings within the app to adjust particle size and length, or invert the canvas. It’s a ridiculously simple app, but one that is undeniably fun to play with.
5
Fidgetable
Fidgetable might be the most basic app of its kind on this list, but it nails the brief pretty much perfectly. This is an incredibly simple fidget toy with eight separate activities to choose from, all of which are free to use without ads. You can donate a minimum of $0.99 in order to support the developer, which unlocks a few additional features, including new fidgets that are in beta testing.
One thing the app does really well is haptic feedback, with all fidget activities having some form of reactivity that you can feel. These include basics like buttons that pop like bubble wrap and toggles that buzz and snap rhythmically (you can activate multiple at the same time).
On top of this are more interesting fidgets that use your device’s gyroscope to balance a ball or the accelerometer to detect how hard you’re shaking. You can customize almost everything, from the order of the fidgets to the colors and app icon.
6
Ballz
Ballz is a clone of the classic arcade game Breakout with one crucial difference. Launch balls towards the tiles at the top of the screen, with the aim of popping them as more appear over time. The twist is that you don’t need to worry about “catching” the ball when it reaches the bottom of the screen, but the tiles will drop with each ball you launch.
It’s game over when a tile reaches the bottom of the screen. To make things more interesting, tiles have numbers that correspond to how many times you need to make contact with them before they will disappear. On top of this, you can collect additional balls which makes the game feel as frantic as multi-ball mode on a pinball table but without the stress of having to keep them in play.
The result is a familiar yet relaxed arcade experience. It’s effortless to play but rewarding to watch, and you can enjoy it for free with ads (or pay $2.99 to remove them). Ballz is also available on Android.
7
Figure
Figure has been a go-to fidget app for me since it was first released over a decade ago. This is probably the most simple music-making app on the App Store, foregoing the technical aspects of building beats and making loops in favor of preset instruments, knobs, and pads.
You have three tracks: drums, lead, and bass. You can use the built-in controls to create a rhythm by increasing or decreasing a number. Use the range and scale steps to decide which notes are available to you. Set a key and tempo, then use the simple mixing desk to blend your creations together. You can get by here simply by feeling your way around, there’s really no need to understand exactly what you’re doing.
Record your taps and swipes, tweak the sound and record your changes, and save your results. You can even export your creations if you want, though I confess that I’ve made hundreds of short loops over the years and never done a single thing with them. For me, this is basically a private sketch pad for music.
Related
A Beginner’s Guide to Making Music on iPhone and iPad
iPhones and iPads are excellent music production systems. Here’s how to get started making your own music.
8
Flowpaper
While we’re on the topic of digital sketchpads, Flowpaper is absolutely worth a mention. This is another app that I’ve kept installed for years, ever since I discovered it a good couple of years ago. It’s a really simple yet satisfying drawing app that uses a set of preset brushes and effects to achieve interesting results.
At the risk of sounding like an old man, the thing that Flowpaper reminds me of the most is a Spirograph (the old children’s toy that produces geometric curves using discs that rotate in a guide). While Flowpaper is far more freeform, it somehow scratches the same itch. The free version is somewhat limited, but you can experiment with symmetry and colors to create and export your art.
Since the app’s default output resolution is your device’s screen resolution, you can use it to create wallpapers fairly easily too.
9
Retinamandelbrot
The Mandelbrot set is a famous fractal pattern named after Benoit B. Mandelbrot that was first drawn in 1978 and visualized by its namesake two years later. It’s a complex mathematical fractal curve that’s well known for its seemingly endless level of detail, and it’s incredibly fun to explore. Retinamandelbrot is an app for iPhone and iPad that allows you to discover this fascinating set for yourself.
Zoom and pan around to fully explore the Mandelbrot set up to a factor of 10^20000. Zoom and release to start your fractal journey and allow the app to automatically zoom in or out, while tweaking the color palette, and easily capture a high resolution image or video using the built-in tools.
Of all the fractal explorers I’ve tried, Retinamandelbrot is arguably the best even if it’s been a while since the app has been updated. Though there’s no feedback as such, the app is a great little visual distraction and one I find it’s easy to get lost in however I’m feeling.
Doomscrolling got you down? Get your iPhone to berate you when you spend too long on social media (it really works). Sure, these fidget apps and time-wasters aren’t exactly productive, but at least they won’t depress you quite in the same way that other apps will. I’d also bet money that they’re easier to close once you’ve had your fill, too.
Do you have any more apps that are prefect for fidgeting, satisfying to play with, or better for timewasting? Share them in the comments below as I’m always on the lookout for more.
