Four & Six Breathing Exercise

Four seconds in. Six seconds out. That is the whole app.

Press Begin. A slow shape opens and closes with your breath, and a quiet tone marks each turn. Then put the phone in your pocket. The session keeps counting and keeps sounding its cues with the screen off, and shows you where you are from the Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island — so you can shut your eyes and stop watching a screen, which is rather the point of a breathing app.

When it earns its place

Before you walk into the meeting. On the train home, eyes shut, earbuds in. In bed, when the day is still going round. In the car before the interview. Five minutes on the sofa when the evening has gone loud. Anywhere you have three minutes and a pocket.

What it does not do

It's free, and there is nothing inside it to buy. No ads. No account, no sign-in, no email address. No analytics, no tracking, no third-party code. It makes no network requests at all — there is no networking code in it — so nothing you do here can leave your phone.

The pattern does not change

Four in, six out. A longer exhale than the inhale, every time. There is no pattern picker and there will not be one. If you came for box breathing, 4-7-8 and a menu of twelve alternatives, this is honestly not the app for you. The fixedness is the design: nothing to configure means nothing standing between you and starting.

The rest of it

• Counts you in for three seconds, so the first inhale doesn't arrive while you're still putting the phone down
• Choose a length, or leave it open and end when you're ready
• Your history, with the last seven days shown as a window that recovers rather than a streak that breaks
• Optional mindful minutes written to Apple Health — write-only, and the app never asks to read anything back
• A Home Screen widget and a Control Centre control, to start without opening the app
• Ask Siri — "Breathe with Four & Six" — or start it from Spotlight or the Action button, phone still in your pocket
• Gentle haptics, and a tone you can turn off
• A morning and an evening appearance, chosen by the hour rather than by the system switch, because 6am and 11pm want different things
• Works entirely offline. On a plane, in a basement, in ten years.

Four & Six is a relaxation and focus aid. It is not a medical device, and it is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any condition.