Idlewild Shore

What to do at the cottage: a lake to watch, a paint shed down the beach and a table set for two.

The shore

How do I stop?

Touch the top-left corner of the screen at any moment. Anything you picked up that session is already kept. There is nothing to lose by leaving early and nothing that has to be finished.

Where do the shells go?

Into the drawer, in the colors they had on the beach. It keeps what you have picked up across every session, and it lives only on your iPhone. It is not counted and there is no total anywhere. A few of the ones you picked up last also sit on the windowsill in the shed and at the table.

There is no sound.

The app follows the phone's silent setting, the same way a video in a message does. If the phone is set to silent (the switch on the side, or the Action button on newer iPhones), the lake is silent. Turn silent off and the sound comes back.

It is meant to be watchable with the sound off. A waiting room is rarely a quiet place.

Why is the light different every time?

The sky follows the real sun. The app works out sunrise and sunset for your time zone, on the phone, from the time zone alone. So an early morning is not the same session as a late evening, and a December afternoon is not a June one.

It never asks for your location, and nothing is sent anywhere to do this.

Can I choose a different time of day?

There is a quiet line under Begin that opens the other one. The shed and the table follow it.

How long is it?

Seven minutes. You can leave at any second.

What is the water doing?

The waves start at about the speed of an ordinary breath and get slower across the seven minutes. If your breathing goes along with them, it slows too. Nothing asks you to do that and nothing checks whether you did. It is just what the water is doing, said plainly here because it seems better to say it than to leave it as a surprise.

It is a place to look at. It is not a medical or health product. It makes no health claims and it is not a substitute for care from a professional.

The Shed

What is the shed?

Three rooms of color puzzles, for the other hours at the lake: Stamp Order (work out the order the stamps went down), Mixing Pot (mix drops of paint to match each color) and Three Colour Map (color a map so no two touching pieces match). There are 74 levels in all.

How do I get there, and back?

On the shore, before you begin, the shed stands on the beach at the bottom left, with a green door. Tap it to walk in. In the shed, The shore at the top takes you back.

Why does the shed look different at night?

The shed and the table are lit by the same sky as the shore. The window shows the sky you walked up from, and when the lamps are lit in the doors on the beach, the lamp is lit inside too. If your iPhone is set to dark mode, the lamp is always on.

Is anything scored?

No. Nothing in the shed shows or keeps a score: no stars, no totals and no timer. Levels open one at a time. The button with four small squares, at the top right of a level, shows the pictures you have painted in that room, with a clean sheet for the next one. There are no level numbers. That is all.

I'm stuck.

Hint always shows the next step, and the first level of each room walks you through it.

How do I start the shed again?

The gear in the shed opens Settings. Under In the shed, hold Hold to erase, or tap it and confirm. That clears the shed's solved levels and any work in progress. The shells in the shore's drawer are not touched, and the Sound switch stays as it is.

The Cottage Table

What is the cottage table?

Four games for two people, one phone between them. Slide (slide discs onto the rings), Snap (tap first when two cards match), Boxes (close a box and it is yours) and Pairs (turn two cards and find a pair). It was made for a grandparent and a grandchild at the table on a holiday weekend.

How do I get there, and back?

On the shore, before you begin, the cottage stands on the beach at the bottom right. Tap it to go in. On the table's first screen, The shore at the top takes you back; leaving puts away any game that was on the table.

How do we sit?

Lay the phone flat on the table between you. Orange sits at the bottom of the phone and Blue at the top. Each game shows you what to do as it starts.

Help for one player

On the note on the table's first screen, choose a player and A little or A lot of help. A little is about right for a seven-year-old playing a grandparent, a lot for a five-year-old. Settings, behind the gear, explains what the help does in each game.

Is anything kept score of?

Each game keeps its own score until someone wins. Nothing adds up from one game to the next, and nothing is kept between days.

About the app

VoiceOver

On the shore, the two pace marks are reachable with VoiceOver, in the same places the touch controls are. In the shed, every stamp, part of a picture and piece of a map is its own VoiceOver element. The games at the table are played by sight and touch; at the end of a game VoiceOver says who won. If something is not reachable and should be, that is worth an email. It is the kind of thing that is easy to miss and easy to fix.

Sound

One Sound switch in Settings covers the shed and the table. Their sounds stay quiet when the phone is set to silent, and they play along with your music. The lake follows the ring/silent switch.

What does it need?

An iPhone running iOS 17 or later.

Purchases and refunds

Idlewild Shore is bought once. There is no subscription, nothing to renew and nothing else to buy inside it.

Purchases and refunds are handled by Apple rather than by me. The place to ask is reportaproblem.apple.com.

Privacy

The app collects nothing, sends nothing and has no account. The whole policy is on the privacy page, and it is short.