If you want an estimated burn time built from the live UV index, your skin type and your sunscreen, counted down on your Lock Screen and Apple Watch, pick Shade. If you want a routine aimed at a skin tone you choose, or you’d like the app on iPad too, pick Beam Tanning.
What each app does
Shade reads the live UV index from Apple Weather, takes your Fitzpatrick skin type (I–VI) and protection (bare skin, sunscreen or covered up), and shows your estimated burn time. During a session you get a countdown, turn-over cues, a reapply reminder every 2 hours with sunscreen and a heads-up before your estimated burn time. The numbers follow WHO UV Index guidance.
Beam Tanning, from Titano Digital, also uses Apple Weather for UV. As of October 2026 its App Store listing describes setting a desired tone, building a custom routine and completing it, plus sunburn-prevention suggestions. It analyses face images on your device for skin attributes. The UV index is free; the routine and suggestions need a subscription. Beam’s name and listing frame it around tanning speed, which Shade deliberately doesn’t do.
Key differences
- What you get from it. Shade gives you a time estimate and a countdown. Beam gives you a routine toward a target tone.
- Skin input. Shade asks you to pick your Fitzpatrick type. Beam analyses a face image.
- Sunscreen. Shade counts sunscreen conservatively, far below the SPF number, because people under-apply. Beam’s listing doesn’t say how sunscreen factors in.
- Devices. Beam has the wider reach: iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, iOS 17 and later. Shade needs iOS 26 and has no iPad app.
- Ratings. Beam has about 16,000 US ratings (4.7 average) as of October 2026, far more than Shade.
Who each is for
Shade suits you if you want to know roughly how long you have before you’re likely to burn, and to see that on your wrist or Lock Screen without opening the app. Beam suits you if you like a goal-based routine, want the face-scan approach, or use an iPad.
Other options
SunSafe and SPF also lean on routines, Tan AI adds an AI chat, and UVLens keeps to UV and burn risk. See all Shade comparisons or the best tanning apps in 2026.