Gratus is a delightfully Material new app for reminding you what you’re grateful for

Abner Li | Jul 19 2017 - 1:35 pm PT

Francisco Franco is one of our favorite developers of indie Android apps, and his latest app very much shares the useful and beautiful nature of his productivity timer app 5217. Gratus is geared towards capturing what you’re grateful for and then reminding you with notifications and widgets throughout the day…

On initial launch, you’re presented with a simple dialogue box to enter what you’re grateful for and a field to tag your post. There is also the option to attach a picture or take a new one.

From then on, the app opens on a feed that lists your various entries and a FAB to write new ones. Each card features a heart icon that can be tapped repeatedly to boost that post in ranking when viewing entries sorted by likes. From a right-hand navigation drawer, users can also sort by date, as well as through tags.

There are two ways in Gratus to be reminded of your entries, but both require a one-time in-app purchase of €2.49.

The first is a widget that can be resized to fit the entire homescreen and the other is through notifications. Both include any attached image, as well as the first few lines of your post. The refresh rate for both is customizable and ranges from 5 minutes to daily. We’ll be taking a closer look at this app on video soon.

There is also a reminder feature that encourages you to write a post daily. This in-app purchase also unlocks passcode/fingerprint protection which is a good idea if you want to use it as a more personaly journal-like app.

Like Franco’s other apps, Gratus is a delightful Material Design playground with many flourishes and animations that are worth spending a couple of minutes on even if you don’t think the concept of the app is for you.

However, I personally think that it is worth a try to see if the habit sticks for you. I think you’ll quickly find that notifications that don’t harken doom and gloom provide a rather needed amount of joy. Gratus can be downloaded today from the Play Store.