grug App: Free Daily Wisdom for iPhone, by Ocho
Last updated: 11 October 2026
The grug app gives you one short piece of advice every morning, written by a caveman in broken English and drawn on screen in hand-made lettering. It comes from Ocho, a two-person studio in the Netherlands, and it won the 2026 Apple Design Award for Delight and Fun.
It is free, with no in-app purchases, no account and no data collected. It runs on iPhone with iOS 18 or later, and on Apple silicon Macs and Vision Pro through the App Store. I checked the price, the requirements and the privacy label on the UK App Store on 11 October 2026.
For the opinion, the Cool Factor score and what holds it back, read my grug app review.
Get grug free on the App Store
What the grug app does
Each morning at sunrise the app shows a new wisdom. It runs to three or four lines and is written in grug's voice, with short words and no articles. One example from the App Store screenshots reads "first thought when wake = seed for whole day. grug plant one small good thought, grow good day tree."
Above the wisdom there is room to draw, and you sketch with your finger whatever the line makes you think of. In the developer's screenshots, a strip along the bottom of the screen shows the earlier days, each with a small drawn icon and its date. The slot after today reads "grug back sun rise".
You can share a page with someone else, and there are large and small Home Screen widgets that show the wisdom without opening the app. The developer lists light and dark modes, plus a choice of colours for the page.
The hand-drawn lettering
Every letter in the app is drawn by hand, not set in a font. Ocho built a drawing canvas into an early version of the app, drew each letter on it, and then wrote a rendering engine that uses those strokes as its type system. The same engine draws the wisdom, the menus, the icons and even the status bar at the top of the screen, which shows the time and battery in grug's handwriting.
The founders describe the wisdom arriving on screen "like ink appearing on paper", rather than fading in like a font. Michel Elings, one of the two founders, told Apple Developer that using the engine everywhere was the hardest decision they made, "but that decision became the thing that makes grug feel like grug."
Key features
- One wisdom a day: a new page arrives at sunrise, with earlier days in a strip at the bottom of the screen
- Drawing: sketch on each day's page with your finger
- Sharing: send a page to someone else
- Widgets: large and small Home Screen widgets show the day's wisdom
- Themes: light and dark modes, plus a choice of page colours
- Privacy: no login and no cloud sync. The App Store privacy label reads Data Not Collected
grug app price in the UK
grug is free on the UK App Store, and the listing carries no in-app purchases at all. There is no subscription and no paid tier. Nothing on the app's own site, grug.so, mentions a paid version either.
Platforms and requirements
- iPhone: iOS 18.0 or later. Version 1.5.1 came out on 9 October 2026 and the download is 22.7 MB
- Mac: macOS 15 or later, on a Mac with an M1 chip or newer, running the iPhone app
- Apple Vision Pro: visionOS 2.0 or later, again running the iPhone app
- iPad: the App Store does not list a version for iPad
- Android: none. The app is only on the App Store
- Language: the App Store lists English as the only language
- Age rating: 4+
In the UK the app holds 4.9 stars from 356 ratings. Those figures are from 11 October 2026.
Who makes grug
Ocho B.V. is Jip van der Velde and Michel Elings, based in the Netherlands. The two have worked together since 2012 and launched Ocho in April 2025. grug first came out on 4 September 2025. The studio also makes Sudoku a Day, Peek Message and Photo Restore App.
The Apple Design Award
Apple named grug the app winner in the Delight and Fun category of the 2026 Apple Design Awards. Apple's citation calls it "a little masterpiece of clever simplicity that never takes itself too seriously", and singles out the hand-drawn status bar and the release notes. The release notes are written in grug's voice too: one update reads "grug hit bug with stick."
Get grug
Free to download on the UK App Store, with no in-app purchases.
Download grug from the App Store
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the grug app free?
Yes. It is free on the UK App Store and the listing shows no in-app purchases, so there is nothing to unlock. I checked on 11 October 2026.
Is grug on Android?
No. grug is only on Apple's App Store, for iPhone, with the same app running on Apple silicon Macs and Vision Pro.
Does grug need an account?
No. There is no login and no cloud sync, and the App Store privacy label says the developer collects no data from the app.
Who makes the grug app?
Ocho, a two-person studio in the Netherlands run by Jip van der Velde and Michel Elings. They also make Sudoku a Day and Peek Message.
What award did grug win?
The 2026 Apple Design Award for Delight and Fun, in the apps category. The game winner in the same category was Is This Seat Taken?
Official Sources
- grug on the UK App Store
- grug.so, the app's own site
- Apple Design Awards 2026 winners and finalists
- Apple Developer's interview with the grug team
Features and prices can change with any update to the app.
More from CoolCuration
- grug app review: the opinion piece, with the Cool Factor score and the gaps that stop it scoring higher.
- Structured: another 2026 Apple Design Award app, a visual day planner for iPhone, iPad and Mac.
- Kaweco Classic Sport: an octagonal pocket fountain pen, for people who like their handwriting on paper.
- Self-care gifts: gifts for looking after yourself, or someone you love.
- New apps each month: the monthly round-up of new and updated app designs worth a look.
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