Bubbles In Time uses Android's display-over-other-apps permission to float your favorite photos as persistent circular bubbles across your entire screen — over every app, every moment of your day.
Android has a permission called SYSTEM_ALERT_WINDOW — commonly known as "display over other apps." It allows an app to draw views on top of every other app on the screen. Chat heads on Facebook Messenger used this. Screen recorders use it for their floating record button. Bubbles In Time uses it to show your photos.
When you enable floating bubbles in BIT, the app starts a Foreground Service — a persistent background process that Android keeps alive even while you're using other apps. This service manages the bubble window: creating it, positioning it, handling your touch input (drag, swipe, tap), and timing when new bubbles surface.
A persistent notification is shown whenever the service is active, as required by Android. This ensures you always know when bubbles are running and can disable them at any time.
BIT draws a small circle on your screen that stays there across all your apps. You gave it permission to do that. The notification in your shade is Android's required way of reminding you it's happening.
Yes. BIT is tested on Samsung Galaxy hardware including the S24 series. Samsung's One UI occasionally has aggressive battery management that can affect background services — if bubbles stop surfacing after a few hours, go to Settings → Apps → Bubbles In Time → Battery → and set it to "Unrestricted."
The foreground service uses minimal resources when idle between bubble intervals. During the brief moment a bubble is rendered, there's a small CPU spike. In testing, the impact on typical daily battery life has been negligible — under 1% additional drain on most devices.
Yes for most apps. Some games run in exclusive full-screen mode that blocks all overlays — this is a game setting, not a BIT limitation. Standard apps, browsers, messaging apps, social media, maps, and most games work correctly with BIT's overlay.
Swiping a bubble dismisses it until the next scheduled interval. If you want to stop bubbles entirely, tap the bubble to open BIT and toggle the service off, or dismiss the foreground notification. You're always in control.
No. BIT has no server, no cloud sync, and no network calls related to your photos. Everything runs entirely on your device. See our Privacy Policy for the full breakdown.
No. $2.99 one time. You own the app. No monthly fees, no annual renewals, no premium tiers. Every feature in every version is included in that single purchase.
Devices with aggressive battery optimization (Xiaomi MIUI, Huawei EMUI, some Samsung settings) may require setting BIT to "Unrestricted" battery mode for consistent bubble delivery. We document known device-specific steps in the app's help section.