Your Instagram habit just met its match, and it wears sneakers. The WeWard Walking Mode feature just landed on TIME’s Best Inventions of 2026 list, according to the company.
I’ll say it: this is the first fitness feature I’ve seen that punishes you with your own phone. And honestly, it might work.
How WeWard Walking Mode works
The idea is simple, which is usually how the sneaky ones start. You pick the apps you want locked, usually social media. You also pick a daily step goal. Until you hit that number, those apps stay shut, as Inc. described when the feature launched.
WeWard launched Walking Mode on July 8, 2026. The company says it is available now on iOS, with Android listed as “coming soon.” It has not given a date.
The TIME honor, with one caveat
TIME released its list on Thursday, Oct. 15. The magazine says it covers 300 inventions, plus 100 special mentions, judged on originality, efficacy, ambition and impact. If you want the full rundown, our look at TIME’s 300 best inventions covers everything from vineyard robots to a satellite dog tracker. WeWard says Walking Mode landed in the Apps & Software category, per its press release on PR Newswire.
That release is the only place I could confirm the WeWard entry. TIME’s main list page is live, but I did not see the app’s own entry in the research. Consider the honor company-reported until you see it on TIME’s site.
“It’s an incredible honor to be named to TIME’s Best Inventions of 2026 List among such great company,” said CEO and co-founder Yves Benchimol.
What the company says about its size
Yves Benchimol and his team founded WeWard in 2019. The app rewards steps with in-app points that users can swap for cash, gift cards or donations. The company says it has more than 30 million users in 29 countries, including over 5 million in the U.S. It also says it has paid out $50 million in cash back to users.
Those are the company’s numbers. They also moved fast. When TechCrunch covered the launch in July, the U.S. count was 4 million. Tennis star Venus Williams backs the app.
WeWard also says Walking Mode boosts walking time by 25 percent. That figure comes from the company, and no one has independently verified it.
Here’s the thing about walk-to-unlock apps
WeWard is not alone. Several apps now make you earn your scrolling with steps, and TIME’s own list includes Brick, another screen-time suppressant, under Consumer Electronics. The same list also honors NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope and Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, so the competition was not exactly a quiet one. Plenty of other tech bets are less cheerful right now, as the AI stock selloff shows.
The pitch behind this step goal app lock is that willpower is overrated and a locked screen is not. Whether a free lock beats a dedicated hardware gadget is the real test. For most of us, the honest question is simpler: do you want the app to force you outside, or will you just change the step goal to 500?
Either way, your thumbs now have a reason to wait for your feet.
