Discipline Trainer: Habit Pet

Keep a habit. Raise a creature.

Every habit you track lays an egg. Keep your promise and it hatches — then it grows, day by day, from a wobbly baby to a winged adult, and at last into its prime. Let it down, and it leaves. Keep your word three days in a row, and it comes home.

ONE CHECK-IN A DAY Once a day, tell it how it went. Kept your promise? It eats and grows stronger. Slipped? Say so honestly: it mopes for a while, then carries on. Nothing grows it but the habit itself. Check in from the app, the Lock Screen, Control Center, your Apple Watch or Siri.

TO-DO LISTS THAT FIGHT BACK Keep lists in their own tab. Today's tasks call up a foe from your creature's world: each tick is a hit, and finishing the day beats it. Each task leaves a gem to find, and a list can keep its habit's day. Tasks can repeat daily, weekly or monthly, with a reminder that nags until they're done.

EXPLORE ITS WORLD Every creature has a world to explore from above: the dragon's meadow, Zeus's Olympus, Hera's garden, Poseidon's sea, Holdfast's Proving Ground. Keep your promise and it lights up, a glimmering trail leading to the day's best find. Each day brings a board of goals, a visitor and errands from the stall keeper. Find gems, food and quote stones, and face the temptations that live there in turn-based battles that grow with your creature. A boss waits in every world, and its trophy stands at the nest once it's beaten. Keep your habit, and it goes further.

GEMS, AND A STORE TO SPEND THEM Every gem your creatures find goes into one purse: an emerald is worth 1, a sapphire 2, a ruby 3, a star gem 5. Spend them in the Store on clothes any creature can wear and on treasures for each nest. Gems are found, never sold.

CHOOSE YOUR CREATURE A dragon, or one of the Olympians: Zeus, Hera or Poseidon, each with powers and a home of their own. Or earn Holdfast, the warden of the Proving Ground, with 500 gems or a 60-day run. How you keep the habit shapes the adult it becomes: Gold, Dawn, Night or Comeback.

IT LIVES WHILE YOU'RE AWAY Your creature lives its own day, app open or not: it sleeps at night, and trains, plays and naps by day.

HOLD THE LINE When a craving hits, tap "I'm tempted". Your creature squares up to it with you for ten calm minutes.

MEDITATE AND PLAY Meditate with your creature, from 1 to 20 minutes, with calm music and a gentle voice, or a soft tone you choose by its frequency. Or play Echo Stones, a memory game that grows harder each round, and Lookout, where you catch two things in a split-second glance.

IT KEEPS A DIARY Every day gets a page in its diary, worded privately by Apple Intelligence where it's available, each sentence checked against what really happened.

LET IT DOWN, AND IT LEAVES A NOTE Miss a day and it mopes. Two, and it packs its bag. Three bad days in a row and it leaves in the night, with a note. But it never dies: three good days in a row bring it home.

Discovery signals