A reminder was not enough
Ordinary prayer reminders tell you that the time has arrived. They do not remember the obligation after the notification disappears. I wanted a tool that would still be there when motivation was not.
Why app blocking
prayd treats an unprayed obligatory prayer as outstanding for the current Islamic day. The apps you choose are shielded after a short grace period, and praying releases them. The mechanism connects the distraction to the thing I meant to do first.
Why there is always a way out
Accountability should not become a trap. You can take a temporary break, pause for menstruation, travel or illness, or use the honour-system fallback if the camera cannot verify your mat. Any unresolved debt clears from enforcement at the next Fajr and moves to the private make-up record.
Private because prayer is private
There is no prayd account or server. Prayer times, prayer records, location and mat matching stay on the iPhone. Apple represents selected apps with privacy-preserving tokens, so prayd does not receive their identities.
What I will not claim
I built a behavioural tool, not a religious authority. Calculation settings and some personal circumstances are configurable. Questions such as qada, high-latitude approximations and the framing of enforcement deserve qualified scholarly guidance, not a founder's ruling.