Spaced Math — Support

Quick answers to common questions, plus how to get in touch.

Getting started

1. Open Spaced Math.
2. On the welcome screen, tap Create Profile. Pick a name, an emoji, and a color.
3. From the profile home, tap a pile (+ − × ÷) or All operators to start a study session. Spoken or typed answers both work.

If you’ve used Spaced Math on another device with iCloud sync on, tap Restore from iCloud on the welcome screen instead. Your profiles will appear once iCloud has synced (usually within a few seconds). If you’ve joined a household on another device, you’ll see a confirmation card prompting you to join here too.

The free app and the full app

Spaced Math is free with one profile and one operation (the one you choose the first time you open the app). A single one-time purchase, the full unlock, adds:

• All four operations plus mixed practice
• Up to 8 profiles, each with its own progress
• Household sharing across your family’s devices
• Custom Practice and Time Trials

It is a one-time purchase, not a subscription, and it is shared with your family through Family Sharing.

How do I unlock the full app? Open Settings → Spaced Math Full → Unlock the full app, or tap any locked feature. A grown-up solves a quick multiplication problem first (an Apple requirement for children’s apps), then the App Store handles payment.

I already paid. How do I restore it? On a new device or after reinstalling, open Settings → Spaced Math Full → Restore Purchase, signed in to the App Store with the Apple ID you bought it with. If a family member bought it, Family Sharing unlocks it once you are in the same family group.

I have a promo or gift code. Open Settings → Spaced Math Full → Redeem a code and enter it. The full app unlocks as soon as the code is accepted.

Voice mode

By default, the App listens for spoken answers. Numbers can be spoken naturally (“twenty-four”, “two four”, “one hundred forty-four”) or as digits.

Voice mode isn’t working — what now?

• Make sure you allowed microphone and speech recognition access. iOS Settings → Spaced Math → Microphone (on) and Speech Recognition (on).
• Tap the mic area to discard the current attempt and try again.
• If recognition consistently mishears, switch to the on-screen keypad: tap Keypad in the answer area, or open profile Settings → toggle Voice mode off.

My answer is “wrong” but I said the right number. Speech recognition can hallucinate a different number than you spoke. If it happens often, switch to the keypad temporarily and let recognition warm up (it tends to improve over time on the same device).

Spaced repetition

Each profile keeps independent progress. Cards you’ve never seen are “new” and start due immediately. As you study:

• A correct answer moves the card further into the future. Faster answers (under 2.0 s by default) get longer intervals.
• A wrong answer brings the card right back into rotation: it’s re-queued 6–12 cards later in the same session.
• If you recover the card later in the session, only the recovery grade counts — your “mistake” is forgotten.

The Stats bar on the profile home shows your streak, total reviews per day, and learned/total cards.

The Review card (only visible when there’s something to review) is a focused fix-up queue: it cycles through cards you’ve recently missed, cards in relearning, and cards that are overdue from a previous day.

Practice (per profile)

The Practice bar on the profile home is a no-scheduler free-drill. Same card pool, but ignores due dates. Useful for warming up or for sessions where you don’t want to nudge the FSRS scheduler. Practice difficulty (Easy/Medium/Hard) is configurable in Settings.

Active Numbers

In Settings → Active Numbers, pick which operands (1–12) you want to drill against. The selection acts as a base: with {1, 2} selected, you’ll see every problem touching 1 or 2, not just 1+2 / 2+2 / 1+1. Toggle a number off and back on without losing its FSRS state.

iCloud sync

How do I enable it? Tap the gear icon on the profile picker → Settings → Sync → Use iCloud → on. Make sure you’re signed into iCloud in iOS Settings.

My profiles aren’t syncing.

• Confirm you’re signed into iCloud on both devices, and into the same Apple ID.
• Confirm sync is on in App Settings on both devices.
• CloudKit cross-device sync is usually fast (seconds, often near-instant via silent push) but can take longer over weak networks. Try opening the App on each device and giving it 30 seconds to settle.

I switched Apple IDs and now my profiles are gone. For your safety, the App detects when the iCloud account on your device changes and turns sync off automatically — so old data isn’t silently uploaded to a different account. If your profiles are still on this device, they’re untouched. If they were only in the previous iCloud account, switch back to that account and re-enable sync to recover them.

I want to wipe iCloud copies. Open Manage Profiles and delete each profile individually. With iCloud sync enabled, deletes also remove the matching CloudKit records from the family zone.

Households

Spaced Math supports sharing your entire household with other Apple IDs, so a child using Dad’s iPad and Mom’s iPhone can pick up exactly where they left off — even when those devices are signed into different iCloud accounts. In v3 the household is the unit of sharing: every profile on the owner’s device is part of the household.

How do I create a household?

1. Make sure iCloud sync is on (gear icon → Settings → Sync → Use iCloud → on).
2. Open Settings → Household → Set up household.
3. Give your household a name (e.g. “Smith family”).
4. Pick how to invite people: Messages, Mail, Copy Link, or AirDrop.

What happens when someone accepts an invite?

The participant taps the invite link, the App opens with a confirmation sheet, and they choose between:

• Export first — saves their current profiles to a JSON file (they can re-import later if they change their mind).
• Join — replaces their current profiles with the household’s profiles. This is destructive on the participant’s device — their pre-join profiles are wiped from the device (but not from any iCloud account that already has a copy).
• Cancel — does nothing. The user can re-tap the invite link later.

After joining, the participant sees the household name as a chip on their picker and can see + edit any profile in the household. Their study activity writes through CloudKit’s permission model to the owner’s iCloud.

Who can see the household?

Only Apple IDs you explicitly invite. The share is invite-only — anyone with the link can join, but only if you sent it to them. You can revoke access at any time (Settings → Household → Disband).

Whose iCloud is the data stored in?

The owner’s (the person who created the household). Study activity recorded by any participant writes through CloudKit’s permission model to the owner’s iCloud. The participant’s iCloud doesn’t store a separate copy.

What if the owner disbands the household or signs out of iCloud?

All participants lose live sync on their next refresh, but the household profiles stay on their device as their own — they don’t get wiped. If the owner just signed out of iCloud, re-signing in restores live sync for everyone.

Can a participant leave a household without involving the owner?

Yes. Settings → Household → Leave household. The owner’s data is unaffected; the participant keeps the household profiles on their device as their own going forward.

How many participants can a household have?

Apple’s CKShare cap is 100. The natural family scale is around 6 (matches Apple’s Family Sharing group max).

Can a kid under 13 with a managed Apple ID join a household?

Managed (school-issued) Apple IDs can’t be CKShare participants. For those families, sign both devices into the same Apple ID instead — the per-Apple-ID sync path still works without invites.

Export / Import (backup)

In Settings → Backup you can:

• Export profiles to file — saves every profile on the current device as a JSON file. Useful as a manual off-iCloud backup or before any destructive operation (joining a household, switching devices, etc.).
• Import profiles from file — restores a previous export. Merge mode adds any missing profiles and updates existing ones if the imported copy has a newer updatedAt. Replace mode wipes the device’s profiles and installs the imported set; available only when you’re not currently in a household.

I want to start a profile over without deleting it

Open the profile, tap the gear icon, then Reset this profile’s progress. Clears spaced-repetition state, mistakes, and activity history but keeps the profile’s name, emoji, color, and settings.

My device

• Spaced Math runs on iPhone and iPad with iOS 16.0 or later.
• All features work offline, except iCloud sync (requires iCloud sign-in).

Contact

Email spacedmath@gmail.com.

If you’ve found a bug, please include:

• Your iOS version (Settings → General → About → iOS Version).
• Your device model.
• Whether the issue happens with voice mode, keypad mode, or both.
• A short description of what you expected vs. what happened.

A reply usually goes out within a few days.