"Paying you even without a phone": ミルポ gained 350 ratings on iPhone in a week, but it's the second brand of a listed company

A Japanese app where you set a goal of "not opening a given app for a few hours" and earn points for hitting it. It reached the iPhone in Oct 25, and by Nov 6 it was gaining 120 new ratings a day. It looks like a clever new idea, but it's really a Tokyo listed company's already-working app given a new name and relaunched. The mechanics are worth learning, but you probably can't take this path. Here's why, and which part is worth taking.

A tweet that said "it's just a different name"

In 2026 Jul 23, the official X account of Japanese points site "ポイントゲット" posted: "Introducing 'ミルポ', which earns points both for the time you use your phone and the time you don't. It's ポイム's sister app. 名前が違うだけで仕様はほぼ同じ (just a different name, nearly identical specs)." The tweet got about 9,000 views at the time.

At that point ミルポ was only on Android. More than three months later, in Oct 25, the iPhone version launched. In Nov 3, someone left a five-star review on the Japan App Store:

"I was using ポイム first, and recently started using this one too. It's easier to understand than ポイム, and you can complete this one's tasks just by opening ポイム, which is convenient."

Another five-star review was blunter: "I figured it was about the same as ポイム, and there are already too many points apps, so I ignored it. But my first time, I got 100 points, and after setting it to 'not using a certain app for 3 hours,' I got points just by leaving it alone."

These two reviews pretty much explain everything about why the app is growing: the same people, on the same phone, installing one more place to earn passively.

What it actually is

ミルポ has only two goal types:

• "Not using" goal: pick an app and set "not opening it for 30 minutes / 1 hours / 3 hours"; hit it and earn points.
• "Using" goal: pick a learning app or similar and set "use it for 30 minutes"; hit that and earn points too.

The store page packages it as "quit short videos and build study habits," but people doing ポイ活 (Japanese for earning spare change through points) see right through it to how it's really used. One user wrote in an Oct 26 review: "Set an app I never use, like the calculator, and you get points without doing anything."

100pt = 1 yen. Once you save 10k pt (100 yen), you can trade it for an Amazon gift card, valid for 60 days. Japanese review site noblogpoint's October test: using it casually for a day earned 200–500 pt, diligently about 8,700 pt a day, and roughly 150–2,600 yen a month.

Why it's climbing now

It was already validated on Android. The Android version launched in July, reached about 145k installs by Nov 5, and was still gaining 4,000 over the last 7 days (Google Play, 11-05). During this stretch, almost every Japanese review article said "not supported on iPhone", which effectively built a waiting pool of iPhone users in advance.

The iPhone version is already on a growth curve. New daily App Store ratings in Japan:

By Nov 6, about 393 ratings at 4.3 stars. Best rank on the Japan Lifestyle free chart is #53, not on the overall chart or the Top Grossing chart. In the same week, the sister app ポイム, launched earlier, was adding only 7–37 iPhone ratings a day. The new clone is already growing faster than the original.

The blogger treats "install both" as the standard answer. The noblogpoint review has a section on "Which to choose, Point Me or Milpo?" The conclusion: "Install both, that's the right answer." In the same stretch of time without using your phone, the two apps each give you points. Milpo's own store page also says "double points are possible" (you can get points twice). On YouTube, someone titled a video "Point Me + Milpo for 2x points?"

"Listed company" settles the doubts. The developer, 株式会社 TT, is a subsidiary of Tokyo Tsushin Group, listed on the TSE Growth market. The store page closes with a paragraph about this, and every review uses it to answer "is this a scam?" For the ポイ活 crowd, that's the line that converts.

Whether they spent money on paid acquisition is not visible from outside. There are no TikTok videos about it in Japan, and it doesn't show up in the Meta ad records we can search (those cover only some products, so absence proves nothing). Also, several of the five-star reviews from the first few days (10-26 to 10-29) read like the same template ("I can't keep up my morning habit, looking forward to setting goals with a study app"), while real users mostly complain about bugs and ads. We infer that early positive reviews were seeded.

Where the money comes from

Rewarded video ads. The rules are clear: not using the app for 30 minutes earns 10pt, and watching one ad earns 60pt. The extra 50pt is the cut the ad pays the user, which is ¥0.5. A rewarded video in Japan usually earns the developer several times that (est., roughly ¥1–3 per ad), and the gap is profit. The threshold is set at 10k pt with an expiry of 60 days, and points that expire unclaimed are also profit.

Users know they're trading time for small change. A two-star review from Nov 4: "Every time I press 'Challenge' a long, cheap-looking ad pops up, and the points come in slowly, it's annoying." Another two-star review points at the core contradiction: "To stop looking at my phone, I first have to watch an ad video." Review sites also note that to be efficient you have to come back every 30 minutes. An app built around "not using your phone" makes you touch your phone every half hour.

But the complaints don't slow growth. ポイ活 users already assume "watch ads, earn points" and they compare how much they earn per minute and whether they'll get scammed, not how good the experience is.

Who it's competing with

In Japan, "limit app usage time to earn points" is basically only TT, and it competes with itself:

TT has more than a dozen ポイ活 apps (merge games, treasure hunts, ...) that cross-promote each other. ミルポ has a "かんたんミッション" (easy missions) section: download a named app and keep it open for a while to earn points, and the apps featured there are often in-house ones like ポイム. When a new app launches, the referral network catches it.

The closest precedent overseas is Norway's Hold: "swap phone time for rewards." In 2018, the Guardian reported that about 40% of Norwegian students used it. But it never entered Japan, and it lacks Japan's cash-out points system.

Where it falls short

The iPhone version is at 1.0.1, with plenty of problems, all in the review section:

• Screen Time authorization can't be completed: "It loops in the Screen Time settings and won't work" (11-03, one star); "Pressing allow does nothing" (10-29, one star);
• Set goals get wiped: "I tick the apps, press 'Next,' and the ticks disappear" "After finishing, when I press Challenge again, the whole setting is gone; ポイム from the same company doesn't do this" (11-03, three stars);
• SMS verification codes don't arrive, so points earned can't be cashed out (11-03, one star);
• Ads are long and the content is tacky (11-04, two stars).

On the other side, one four-star review says it's "much more stable than the Android version, and starts faster" (10-30).

These flaws aren't fatal for an app built by copying, but they show that the iPhone Screen Time API is genuinely hard to work with, and that is its barrier to entry.

If it were you

Verdict (C): You can learn a distribution playbook from this, but following it isn't worth it. ミルポ didn't take off on one idea. It took off because a listed company's dozen-plus similar apps cross-promote each other, a batch of existing users "installed it too," and a ready-made circle of blogger reviewers picked it up. You can't get any of those three.

Good fit for: teams already monetizing with rewarded video and holding a base of "watch ads, earn rewards" users; or developers who know the iOS Screen Time APIs (Screen Time / FamilyControls) well enough to make the authorization flow smooth, and want to test "swap phone time for rewards" outside Japan.

Bad fit for: solo developers who want to build a head-on competitor in Japan. You'd be fighting TT's three in-house clones for the same users, without its referral network or the "listed company" badge. And anyone without rewarded-ad monetization experience who can't work out "ad revenue per ad vs. points paid per redemption": every point you give out is a loss.

How to do it: if you test it, don't copy Japan. Pick a market with mature "watch ads / do tasks for money" users but no "don't use your phone to earn money" product yet (whether US rewards-app users or Southeast Asian cashback users fit is unverified). Start on Android (no special Apple authorization needed), prove retention and per-user ad revenue, then go to iPhone. Copy the mechanic directly: "don't use an app for 30 minutes → watch an ad for a multiplied reward." The reward always stays below the ad revenue, with a redemption threshold and an expiry.

How to acquire users: follow TT's approach. Find local bloggers and YouTube channels that write about "earn spare change" apps. They live on affiliate commissions and will cover any new app. Put "earn while you do nothing" and "what you can cash out to" on the first screen of the store page, not "quit your phone."

When to move: no rush. There's no window closing here. The risk is the opposite: Apple has been strict about "clone apps" (review guideline 4.3) and about "using an app to earn rewards." Watch for 2–3 months to see whether ミルポ survives on iPhone.

What would prove this read wrong: ① ミルポ's daily iPhone ratings stay at 100 or more after November, without relying on migration from existing users. That would mean "not using your phone for money" has real new demand on iPhone and is worth copying in other markets. ② An external team outside Japan builds a similar app and reaches the top 100 of the local Lifestyle chart. That would mean this doesn't need TT's referral network to take off. ③ The reverse: Apple removes ミルポ or ポイム. That would mean this path is closed on iPhone, and only Android remains.

One last point for product builders: what's worth noting about ミルポ isn't "pay you even when you don't use your phone." It's that a proven incentive mechanic, relaunched under a new name in a new shell, gets the same users to install it again. If you already have a working app, that's far cheaper than finding a new idea.

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Data and sources: App Store Japan ratings, charts, and reviews (10-26 to 11-06); Google Play installs (11-05); noblogpoint.com/mirupo-review (2026-10 hands-on test), tokuria.jp/about-mirupo; X @POINTGET_com (2026-07-23); YouTube "ポイム＋ミルポでポイント2倍?"; Tokyo Tsushin Group website; the Guardian's 2018-01 report on Hold. Places marked "est.", "infer," or "unverified" are estimates and inferences.