How to Log Permit Hours Without Touching Your Phone

Your mom’s in the passenger seat with the engine already running. You’re on the third home screen looking for the app, because the drive doesn’t count until you find it.

Half the time you forget entirely, remember twenty minutes later, and end up guessing at what time you pulled out. Those guesses are what you’re eventually handing to the DMV.

So we got rid of the step. In Moda a drive starts four ways, and none of them involve hunting for an icon.

The four ways

CarPlay. Get in, connect, tap Start Drive on the car’s screen. Moda holds the CarPlay driving task entitlement, which is the one Apple grants for tasks you’re meant to do from the dashboard instead of the phone. Your phone can stay in your pocket for the whole drive, including ending it.

The Action Button. On an iPhone 15 Pro, or any iPhone 16 or later, that button on the side can be Moda. Press it and the clock starts. The app comes forward with the drive already running so you can see it worked.

Siri. “Hey Siri, start a drive in Moda.”

Shortcuts. Build an automation and the drive starts the second your car’s Bluetooth connects. Set the matching one for disconnecting and you never think about it again.

Siri does one more thing, and it’s the one I use most. Ask “how many hours do I have in Moda” and it answers out loud without opening anything, straight from the Lock Screen. That’s the question people pick the phone up for.

Starting a drive by voice does bring the app forward, so that one wants Face ID. Asking about your hours doesn’t.

Moda works out who supervised

The quick-start feature other apps ship makes you set a default supervisor first. If you have to visit Settings before the button does anything, the button doesn’t work.

Moda figures it out. One supervisor on the account and there’s nothing to guess. Set a default and it uses that. Drive with two parents and it carries over whoever supervised last time. The name is right there on the summary when you stop, and one tap changes it.

When it can’t tell, it doesn’t invent an answer. The drive still starts and you put the name on at the end.

The supervisor is part of what a DMV form attests to. Moda won’t print a name on one you haven’t seen.

Why doesn’t every app do this?

Because CarPlay isn’t a switch you flip.

To put an app on a car’s screen you request an entitlement for a specific category, agree to an addendum, and wait. From Apple’s documentation: “Apple reviews each application using predefined criteria. If your request meets the criteria, Apple adds the entitlement to your developer account.”

The rules for the driving task category are strict. No custom maps. A hard cap on how deep the screens can go. Every screen usable at 60mph. Getting approved means convincing Apple that logging a practice drive belongs on the dashboard and not in your hand.

In September 2026 I went through every learner permit log app I could find on the App Store. None of the established ones support CarPlay, Siri, or the Action Button. Not the one with 16,000 ratings, not the one with 5,900. Two apps released this year do list CarPlay, and they have three ratings between them, so I can’t tell you we’re the only ones. Only that we’re the only one with users.

What people actually complain about

Nobody complains about the design of these apps. They complain about this, from a one-star review in August:

Last night, I finished all of my required hours. I opened the app to find out that with them fixing the maintenance issues, they deleted all of my hours from the last month, which was about 20 out of my 50. I have my test in a week.

Twenty hours, a week before the test. She didn’t lose a file. She lost the only copy of it.

Moda keeps your log encrypted on your phone and keeps a second copy in the Keychain, which survives deleting and reinstalling the app. Your route never leaves the device. Link a parent and they get hours and miles, never where you were.

A driving log has one job, which is to still be there in ten months when somebody at the DMV asks for it. Nothing else counts if it fails that one.

What it costs

$4.99, once. No subscription. No ads, because a sixteen-year-old holding a phone in a moving car shouldn’t be looking at one.

One purchase covers six people through Family Sharing, so a parent can buy it and the driver gets it. Charging a household twice for the same app would be rude.

Moda is on the App Store. Set the Action Button once. That’s the last time you’ll go looking for the app to start a drive.

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