iPhone
The home of Qardbox, from iOS 26. You get every feature and every view here, plus widgets, Live Activity and the Action button. Everything else follows what this device can do.
Qardbox is wherever you are
The app itself is your main route to the cards. Alongside it there are several short routes to your first card without having to look for Qardbox on the screen at all. That gets you from the lock screen into a session in seconds.
On which devices
iPad
The same app, only with more room. You see your subjects and your statistics side by side rather than one after another, and the study view makes better use of the larger area.
Apple Watch
For the short session in between, you see your due cards on your wrist and rate them there with a single tap, without hunting through a view.
Widgets
A widget shows you something without your having to open the app, and Qardbox brings three of them, one large and two small. The large one shows more at a glance, the small ones fit into any gap on the home screen.
Press and hold an empty spot on the home screen until the icons wobble, then tap the plus at the top left and look for Qardbox in the list. Swiping sideways then shows the available sizes. The large widget can be edited afterwards, the two small ones cannot.
Control Center
Swipe down from the top right corner of the screen and Control Center appears. Qardbox puts three controls in there:
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| Start session | Starts a session immediately, in the direction set in the settings. The shortest route from the lock screen to the first card. |
| New card | Opens Qardbox and immediately puts up the sheet for a new card. |
| Due cards | Shows how many cards are waiting today. |
Siri and Shortcuts
Shortcuts are small jobs your iPhone carries out for you, and Qardbox registers several of them with the system without your having to set anything up. Say for example “Start a Qardbox session” or “My Qardbox streak”.
If you want a session in a particular subject, that works through the Shortcuts app. Choose Qardbox there and then Start session. The shortcut then shows you a Subject field, with icon and number of due cards, so you can see what awaits you before you start.
The Action button
The Action button sits above the volume rocker on the left and exists from the iPhone 15 Pro onwards. Older devices and the non-Pro models do not have it. On those the shortest route is Control Center or a widget.
Open the iOS settings, go to Action Button, choose Shortcut there and then the Qardbox shortcut. A long press on the button then starts the session.
Just carry on at the second device
If a session is running on your iPhone, a nearby iPad offers by itself to take it over: same subject, same card, same progress. The same applies to a card being edited, provided both devices use the same sign-in.
You need iCloud sync for that, because Qardbox only passes identifiers across and no card content. And without sync the other device does not know your cards at all.
The Live Activity during a session
During a session you see your progress on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island. The five stars there are your hit rate and nothing else: five from 90 per cent correct answers, four from 75, three from 55, two from 35 and one below that.
You should not overrate a high figure early in the session. With few cards a good start quickly gives four or five stars, which settle differently later. The rate only becomes meaningful towards the end of a somewhat longer session.