Which couples app
do you actually need?
There are about six genuinely different answers to that, and Pulse is only one of them. Here is what each kind is good at, and where we would send you instead.
Described in August 2026 from each app’s own public material. Apps change and prices move, so every name below links to its own page.
Six ways to build an app for two people.
Structured relationship work
A curriculum. Guided sessions on conflict, intimacy, money and family, usually grounded in an established clinical method, worked through together over weeks.
Best when you both already know something needs work, and you want a professional structure without booking a therapist.
A question a day
One prompt written by relationship therapists, answered separately and then revealed, plus quizzes and games. Typically a free question a day with a paid library behind it.
Best when the conversations have quietly stopped and you need a low-pressure way to start one.
Shared logistics
Both calendars in one place, shared lists, and a nudge when it has been a while since you went anywhere. The relationship as a scheduling problem, solved properly.
Best when what you actually argue about is who is where on Thursday.
A private feed of your life
Chat, photos, a day counter and anniversaries in a space only the two of you can reach, with the photo library kept for good. It gets more valuable the longer you use it.
Best when you want one place that is only yours, and you want to still have it in ten years.
Telling each other how you are
You pick your mood and what you are doing, and your partner sees it. Often bundled with countdowns, a diary and a cycle tracker.
Best when you like checking in deliberately, and you want to choose exactly what your partner sees.
Streaming your body
Your live heart rate, or the beat itself, on your partner’s screen or wrist while you are both online. Proof of presence, in real time, as a number or a pulse.
Best when distance is the problem and what you miss is the physical fact of them.
The last two, without the numbers.
Pulse reads the same signals as the streaming apps and asks nothing of you like the manual ones. Your Watch already noticed the lighter sleep and the heavier day; your iPhone reads that against your own baseline, on the device, and sends your partner one sentence about what might help tonight.
What it never sends is the reading. Your partner learns that a calm evening might mean a lot today. They do not learn your resting heart rate, your sleep hours, or that your HRV dropped, because those numbers never leave your phone at all. That is the whole design, and it is the one thing on this page no other approach does.
What reaches your partner, and what it costs you.
You can already share your health data. That is a different thing.
Apple’s Health app lets you share your data and its alerts with a person you choose: heart rate, sleep, exercise minutes, notifications for an irregular rhythm or a steep decline in activity. It is free, built into the iPhone, and if what you want is for someone to see your numbers, it is the right tool and you do not need us.
Pulse is for the opposite want. Nobody sees your numbers, including us, because sharing an interpretation and sharing a readout are not the same relationship. One asks your partner to be gentle tonight; the other asks them to keep an eye on you.
Five times Pulse is the wrong choice.
We would rather you found this out here than after a week of using it.
You have no Apple Watch and no plans to get one
You can log how you are by hand and the rest of the app works, but the part that makes Pulse Pulse has almost nothing to read. Any of the first five approaches will serve you better.
One of you is on Android
Then it will not work, and we would rather say so plainly than leave you waiting for a version that is not coming. Pulse is iPhone and Apple Watch only by design: Apple Health, the iCloud Keychain and watchOS are what make the on-device processing and the encryption possible at all. Several of the apps above run on either platform.
The relationship is in real trouble
A gentle sentence about tonight is not a plan for something that hurts. Structured work, or an actual therapist, is the right answer. Pulse is a wellness companion and not a medical device, and we say so in the terms as well as here.
You want your partner to see your numbers
That is a legitimate thing to want, particularly if one of you is unwell. Apple’s own health sharing does it properly and for free. Pulse is built so it cannot.
You want to keep an eye on someone
Pulse is deliberately bad at this and we intend to keep it that way. Sharing pauses instantly and invisibly if you want, an unusual moment reaches nobody until you approve that individual event, and there is no history for your partner to scroll. Using it to monitor a person without their continuing consent is also against the terms of use.
The ones we actually get asked.
Is Pulse a replacement for a daily-questions app?
No, and plenty of couples run both. A questions app gives you something to talk about; Pulse tells you when to be gentle about it. They answer different questions and neither one covers the other.
Does my partner see my heart rate?
Never. No heart rate, no sleep hours, no HRV, no step count, and no chart. Your iPhone interprets those locally and sends one human sentence. The raw readings never leave your device, not to your partner and not to us.
My partner has an Android phone. Can we use it?
No, and we are not building one. Pulse is iPhone and Apple Watch only by design, not by backlog: the signals come from Apple Health and the end-to-end encryption keys live in your iCloud Keychain, and the whole privacy promise rests on both. Several of the apps in this comparison run on either platform and will serve you better.
Do we both need an Apple Watch?
No. Each of you gets the automatic cue only if you wear one, and without a Watch you can log how you are by hand. Everything else, the chat, the calendar, the shared story, works the same either way.
What does it cost, compared to the others?
Nothing today, with no advertising and no third-party trackers. Most apps in this comparison run a free tier with a paid subscription behind it. If we ever introduce one it will go through the App Store, we will say so clearly in advance, and nothing you already share will move behind it retroactively.
Can I bring my history over from another app?
Not automatically, and we would be lying if we said otherwise. You can start a shared story from any date and set the day you count from, so the count is right even though the old messages are not there.
Still think it might be the right one?
It is free, it takes a few minutes to set up, and you can delete everything from inside the app if it is not for you.
