Father creates app that forces children to answer parent's texts

Dad creates app to help kids respond to texts Creator of 'ReplyASAP' Nick Herbert says he created the app to help his son respond to texts because his phone is frequently on silent.

Tired of not knowing if your children are ignoring your text messages? There’s an app for that.

ReplyASAP, an app built by Nick Herbert, allows parents to send a message that locks kid’s phones until they reply to the message.

The idea for ReplyASAP came to creator Nick Herbert when his son, Ben, got a smartphone.

“I just found that my messages and calls tended to get missed quite a lot because he got a lot of social media notifications,” Herbert told CTV News Channel.

With games, apps, and videos serving as constant distractions, Herbert wanted to find a way to make sure that whenever he had an important message it wouldn’t fall by the wayside.

Through the app, users can send a message that will be displayed over top of anything the recipient may be doing on their phone and sounds an alarm on the phone – even if it’s set to silent.

The recipient can then choose to reply, cancel the message, or snooze it, re-enabling the phone and sending a message back that lets the sender know the recipient’s location.

As soon as the message is viewed, the app also notifies the sender that their message has been seen.

On the ReplyASAP website, Herbert says that he spoke to his son during the development process, working alongside him to develop an app that gives important messages the emphasis they need, while not infringing on the receipient’s freedoms.

“[Ben] likes the idea because he will know that if he gets one of these messages then he will always hear it and will know it’s important,” Herbert wrote.

But ReplyASAP users can’t just send messages to anyone. Users need to have the app installed and connect their phone to a recipient

Multiple plans are available, allowing users to connect to anywhere from one to 20 users, for prices that range between $0.99 to $13.

Herbert says that ReplyASAP has a number of other uses, including keeping tabs on elderly parents, quickly contacting colleagues, or even for something as simple as helping you locate a misplaced phone.

The app is currently only available for Android, but Herbert says he hopes to get it up on the Apple store shortly.