Quietly running in the background
until you need it.
Four small steps. No app to open. No checking. No noise.
Add an errand. By voice or tap.
Capture an errand the moment you think of it. Tap a category — groceries, hardware, pharmacy, twelve to start with — or speak it: “Hey Siri, add screws to my hardware list in StopBy.”
Go about your day. StopBy goes quiet.
No app to open. No checking. StopBy uses iOS region monitoring — a battery-conscious system Apple built for exactly this kind of work — to know when you’re near a store. It runs in the background.
Get a calm alert when you’re nearby.
A short audible alert through your phone or your car’s CarPlay audio, plus a tappable notification: “Mitre 10 · 200m ahead. Screws are on your hardware list.”
One tap to add the stop. Or pass it on.
Tap Add stop — StopBy hands the address straight to Apple Maps, Google Maps, or Waze. Or tap I’ll grab it to claim the errand and stop other family members getting the same alert.
The same app, in a country you’ve never visited.
Most errand apps quietly assume you already know where stores are. They were architected on the assumption that you live somewhere. They become noticeably less useful 50km from home, and effectively useless on holiday or on a business trip. StopBy was built differently. It treats your current location, not your mental map, as the starting point.
| StopBy | Apple Reminders | AnyList | Google Keep | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ✓ | awkward phrasing | X | limited | |
| ✓ | via Contacts | ✓ | via Google account | |
| ✓ | specific address only | X | specific address only | |
| ✓ | X | X | X |
Designed for the moments when typing isn’t an option.
Voice isn’t a feature in StopBy. It’s the primary interaction model. The app is built for the moments when typing is impossible — driving, walking, holding kids, travelling. A product that announces alerts but requires typing to capture them has an obvious asymmetry. StopBy closes both sides of the loop.
“Hey Siri, add cat food to my pets list in StopBy.”
“Animates is 800 metres ahead. Cat food’s on your list.”
Audible alerts use Apple’s enhanced on-device voices and gently duck your music or podcast volume during the announcement, then bring it back. Don’t worry about saying “in StopBy” every time — you can pin a custom Siri shortcut so “Hey Siri, errand” works just as well.
A category for every kind of errand.
Each errand is tagged with a category so StopBy knows which kinds of stores are matches. Categories are how the app avoids cluttering your alerts with shops you don’t care about — and how it stays useful in places you’ve never been.
Twelve starter categories.
From the moment you install StopBy you’ve got categories for the most common errands — groceries, hardware, pharmacy, post, eight more. Each with its own colour and icon, so a glance at your list shows you the shape of your day.
Wine. Yarn. Fishing tackle.
Run a household with specialty needs? Add your own. Pick a colour, pick an icon, done. StopBy then watches for matching shops the same way it watches for the standard ones.
Silent when it matters.
Pharmacy is silent by default — your car shouldn’t announce someone’s medication to a passenger. Configure any category to show without speaking, or skip alerts entirely. Sensitive errands stay private without setup.
A shared list, with one alert going to the right person.
Up to five family members on one shared list. Anyone can add an errand from anywhere — at home, at work, on a school run. Whoever’s near a matching store gets the alert. Tap “I’ll grab it” to claim the errand and the rest of the household stops being asked.
One thing worth being straight about: at launch, the alert goes to whichever family device detects a match first. A future release will go further — alerting only the family member physically closest to the store. We’re shipping the simpler version first because the closest-member version needs architecture we’d rather get right than fast.
We don’t have a database of where you’ve been.
Because we don’t have a database.
Most apps that handle location store it on a server somewhere. They have to — that’s where their matching, analytics, and recommendations happen. StopBy was built differently from the first day, because if your phone is telling you about every shop you walk past, the trust has to be absolute.
On-device matching
The work of matching “what’s near you” against “what’s on your list” happens entirely on your iPhone. No server in the loop. Your location traces never go anywhere.
End-to-end encrypted family sync
Family lists travel via Apple’s CloudKit, which encrypts data with keys held by the participating devices. Apple can’t read it. We can’t read it. Only your family’s iPhones can.
No ads, no tracking, no data sales
StopBy is paid for by people who use it, not by people who want to advertise to you. We never sell location data. We never share it with third parties. There is no business case where this changes.
Pause-all in one tap
A single switch in Settings turns off all location monitoring instantly. Use it on a sensitive trip, a job interview, or any moment you’d rather your phone forgot about. Resume when you’re ready.
The honest list.
A few things we’re not going to pretend are in the first release. Better to be straight about this now than to disappoint you on launch day.