The apps most people try first fail for the same reason: they're designed for someone who will happily maintain them. An eighty-year-old managing six prescriptions will not reset a password, will not curate a list of fourteen pills, and will not hear a notification that Silent mode swallowed.
What survives is an app with very little to operate. That's the bar this page is about.
No account, so there's nothing to be locked out of
Doz needs no sign-up, no email address, and no password. There is no login screen to get stuck on, nothing to recover, and no reason for a support call that starts with "it won't let me in." Install it, add the prescriptions, and it works.
It also collects no personal information — no name, no email, no phone number. For a family member wary of putting health details into an app, that's an easier conversation than a privacy policy full of exceptions. Ours has none; you can read the privacy policy in about a minute.
One card per prescription, not a wall of pills
This is the difference that tends to matter most with older users. Six prescriptions listed as individual pills is fourteen rows of small text with no structure. The same six as prescriptions is six cards — the blood pressure one, the one from the hospital after surgery — each holding its own medications, the doctor who prescribed it, and how long it runs.
That grouping matches how people actually describe their own medication, which makes the screen readable at a glance instead of something to be studied. It also means adding a new prescription is a single flow rather than four separate pill entries with four separate schedules.
Reminders that sound on a phone that's been muted
A phone left on Silent, or with a Focus still running from the night before, is the most common reason a reminder never lands. Standard iOS notifications are suppressed in both cases, by design.
Doz supports Critical Alerts, so a medication reminder can sound anyway. If a dose goes unlogged, a follow-up nudge arrives — and only then, so the phone isn't buzzing all day. Being able to rely on the alert is what makes the app usable by someone who won't be checking a list on their own initiative.
Critical Alerts requires its own iOS permission. If you're setting the phone up on someone's behalf, grant it while you have the device in your hands — the support page covers where to find it.
Refills flagged before the bottle is empty
Running out is its own kind of missed dose, and it's the one a reminder app usually ignores. Doz counts down what's left and warns you while there are still pills in the bottle, which gives you time to arrange a repeat prescription rather than discovering the gap on a Sunday.
Doses that follow real life
Older routines are often more meal-anchored, not less: before breakfast, with lunch, thirty minutes after dinner. Doz ties those doses to actual mealtimes rather than fixed clock times, so a late lunch moves the dose instead of breaking the instruction on the label. Long-running cycles — three weeks on, one week off — run without anyone counting days.
How to set it up for someone else
- Install it on their iPhone, not yours. The reminders have to fire on the phone they carry.
- Enter the prescriptions together, with the boxes or the printout in front of you. You can type the instruction the way the doctor wrote it.
- Grant notifications and Critical Alerts before you hand the phone back. This is the step that decides whether any of it works.
- Check the next dose appears on the Lock Screen — for many people that glance replaces opening the app at all.
- Leave iCloud sync off unless they use an iPad too. One less moving part.
Being straight about the limits
Doz runs on the person's own iPhone. It is not a caregiver dashboard: you won't get a notification on your phone when your father misses his eight o'clock dose, and there is no remote monitoring. If supervision from a distance is what you need, this isn't the tool.
It's iPhone-only, and it is not medical advice — it reminds and organises, and the treatment decisions stay with the prescribing doctor. The terms of service are explicit about that.
Try it
Download Doz on the App Store · Read the FAQ · Why reminders fail on Silent mode