What is the setup Live Activity?
Updated September 2026
It is the banner that holds your place while you are setting Fold'em up, on the lock screen and in the Dynamic Island. It carries three things: the act you are in, one line about what is happening now, and how far along you are as a percentage. It never shows a step number, because a count of steps left is a reason to stop rather than a reason to finish. It starts on your first step past the welcome screen and ends when you reach day one.
What it shows
The banner draws the Fold'em wordmark, the name of the act you are in, one line for the beat you are on, a thin progress bar and a large percentage in the corner. On a phone with a Dynamic Island the same three facts appear there, with the mark alone in the compact slot.
There are five act names in the whole funnel: Taking stock, Seeing it clearly, Committing, Building your lock and Sealing it. The beat line is one sentence and there is only ever one. It reads "On the way to day one" while you are moving, "Approve Screen Time to keep going" while the grant is open, "In Settings, under DNS, choose Fold'em" while the web shield is waiting on iOS Settings, and "One step left: start your plan" at the paywall.
The percentage is a proportion of the whole funnel rather than a step count, and no screen in setup is numbered anywhere. What travels to the banner is that coarse position and one beat, with no name, no email address and no token in it.
Why it now lasts longer than a sitting
The last part of setup is an act you can leave and come back to. Its six steps are listed on a hub inside the app, and the banner is the same act seen from outside. Ten minutes after the last thing you did the banner goes stale, and its line changes to Come back to finish locking in, which is the honest face for an act somebody walked away from.
The final frame is the exception. When you reach day one the line reads that you are locked in, with your end date if your term has one, and the banner stays on the lock screen for about fifteen minutes before it goes. A finished lock is never asked to come back.
When it starts, and when it stops
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It starts on your first step, not on the welcome screen
Opening the app raises nothing. The banner appears once you move forward past the welcome screen, and every step after that updates it in place rather than posting a second one.
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It follows the six steps to sealed
After you pay, setup becomes a hub you can return to at any time, and its own line reads Six steps to sealed: your account, the apps, the deletion lock, the web shield, your keyholder and your witnesses, under the plan you have already bought. The banner tracks the same act, so the lock screen and the hub cannot disagree about where you are.
The six steps the banner tracks
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It ends at day one, or when there is nothing to finish
Reaching day one ends it with the locked frame. If the funnel is abandoned instead, because you signed in to a phone that already holds a term or because the account was reset, the banner is taken down at once with no final frame. Relaunching mid setup adopts the banner that is already there rather than starting a second one.
What this does not do
It enforces nothing. It is not the block screen, it holds no shield, and no tap on it can skip a step or open an app that is sealed. The only date it ever carries is your end date on the final frame, and it shows no money figure, no keyholder name and nothing about your circle. It is an enhancement rather than a part of the lock: if Live Activities are switched off for Fold'em in iOS Settings, or the request fails, no banner appears and your setup is unaffected. It also does not outlive the seal, so there is nothing to dismiss afterwards.
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