About Pagewood

Pagewood is made by one person: Balmike Kumar, an independent developer in India, publishing as Bkv Sapience.

Why Pagewood exists

I built Pagewood for the hours I kept losing to my own phone while studying. Focus apps I tried either just watched me fail, or showed ads inside the very app meant to protect my attention. I wanted something calmer: an app that quietly keeps distracting apps closed while I study, rewards the time I put in, and keeps an honest journal of it.

What Pagewood will never do

• Show ads.
• Charge a subscription.
• Sell seeds or anything that makes the game pay-to-win.
• Sell, share or collect data it doesn't need.
• Claim a feature that doesn't exist.

How it's built

Pagewood is built offline-first: the phone is the source of truth and everything works in airplane mode. Optional sync uses a database where every row is readable only by its owner. App blocking uses Android's Usage access, never the Accessibility service, and runs only during a session you start.

Why it's called Pagewood

A page is both a sheet in a notebook and an old word for a leaf. In Pagewood, every study session is a page in your field journal and a tree in your woodland, so the two meanings grow together: the more pages you fill, the bigger the wood.

How decisions get made

Every feature starts from a real complaint people have about focus apps: punishing mechanics, ads inside a focus tool, data that disappears, subscriptions for a timer. If a feature can't be done honestly, it waits. That's why Strict mode lets you hold for 3 seconds to open an app anyway, why a stopped session leaves a stump that still counts your minutes, and why seeds can never be bought.

What's next

Pagewood 1.0 is in closed testing on Google Play and opens to everyone soon. Planned next, in this order: a one-time unlock after a free trial (no subscription; see pricing), steady improvements from tester feedback, and more guides on this site. An iPhone version is something I'd like to build, but there's no date for it yet, and I won't announce one until it's real. Every change is listed on the changelog.

Get in touch

Bug, idea, or a story about how you study? Email [email protected]. I read everything. You can also follow what's new on the changelog.