This is a great (and tight) execution of a neat concept. I'm not in the garden of Apple so unfortunately I can't play with it, but the preview is thorough. I particularly like the voice integration. I sympathise with some of the time allocation issues you mention, particularly when it comes to important but not urgent things.
Relatedly - I've struggled a lot in the last year with time tracking for fixed price projects (not so important, but useful) and billable hours (very important) largely due to the amount of parallelism I now do; and I think this notion of a "chess clock" may unblock me on building my own tracker for this!
This is great and NOT another pomodoro and I gladly paid £2 for this piece of software which I COULD throw at Fable and probably get something similar but honestly can't be arsed and just want the app.
Very nice, I will buy it.
I am also searching a special feature which add recurring alarms like every 45 minutes (for remembering to get up from my desk).
Can you add a feature like that or point me to a similar app?
Yes, some type of regular notification similar to the one-time wrap-up notification is something I would definetely consider. This overlaps with the Pomodoro-type of apps, which is why it wasn't top priority for me so far.
Really nice looking app. I like the ambiguity of the name.
Was initially confused as to what the total of the ring was — took me a moment to realise it's 100% of the time allocated, not the whole day or the workday. I'd probably want to always allocate 24 hours of tasks (including sleep and downtime) just to get a 24 hour ring.
Yay, someone mentioned the name. As a non-native speaker, I wasn't sure whether the ambiguity really works - glad to hear it does, at least for one other person.
Actually, there is no limit on how much you allocate, even 25h works (yes, might be considered a bug). But that's not the idea. The app is meant to help balance things that pull you in and eat your time without you noticing against those that want you to come and get them actively and intentionally and would never call for you.
Edit: ... and those things usually sum up to much less than 24h, because sleep is in neither category (at least for me); I mean, it does pull you in, but it also lets you go when it's time. :-)
This looks great! However, I would love it if you added support for macOS (and iPadOS) as well. Is this such a large request? I will definitely purchase once macOS support is built in.
I don’t understand what the timers labeled “still yours” mean in the sample images. Is that just a user label or some sort of special category for eg uncategorized time?
I also don’t understand what the different colored parts of the ring represent.
There are two types of notification:
1) When budget runs out (available time goes to zero), there is always an alarm, like for the typical system timer.
2) Optionally, you can enable a notification to nudge you slightly ealier, e.g. 10 minutes. This allows you to prepare to wrap up what you are doing so you can actually stop (e.g. in a "close the lid" sense) when time is up.
For me the same feature set is fine, it's just a different breakdown of time.
On weekdays I have configured 8 hours of work (that I might still subdivide later). On weekends I would like to replace that block with "Chores" and "Nap" :)
I hear you. Not in love with those particular colors either. I need (a) 5 light + 5 dark colors (b) that are pairwise discernible when next to each other and (c) don't get confused immediately with Apple's Activity rings. That last (c) unfortunately rules out many popular open/free color schemes from charting libraries I know.
I'm no expert on colors (nor typography), so will gladly take input from anyone more proficient than me.
I’d just use the system color palette. I would be surprised if users confuse your design with Activity.
The “Live” label looks like a Claudism. For the rest, you should be fine when you use the semantic fonts + size presets provided by Apple. They also set decent values for tracking depending on size and will react to global a11y size settings.
I will definitely look into these improvements, especially the fonts and the "live" badge. For the colors, I'm unsure; I played around a lot with those already and quite used to them by now, but who knows. Thank you for your detailed feedback and the specific suggestions!
Android: not yet, and not from me. But stay tuned; given the interest this saw today, I hope someone with Android skills (that I'm lacking) will jump in.
Claude can do it within hours? give your iOS code, and ask "hey, make an Android app for this iOS app". in 2026, you don't need an Android engineer, but $100 for Claude Code.
The app is made in Swift and relies heavily on Watch Connectivity and AlarmKit (among others when you take the widgets and Live Activity into account, which may be omitted). I assume, none of those maps obviously to Android SDKs.
And in my experience, Claude's first results are fine for a preview, but less so for a reliable product. You can get there, but only if you can follow or even guide the engineering and make the right decisions and tradeoffs along the way. I would definitely need to learn Android to work with Claude.
Don't get me wrong, but I can't allocate that time atm. And I don't think I'm the best person to do it.
Unfortunately, I have no such plans and no OwnTime for that ;)
I guess, if there is interest, it will be possible to use the website as a guidance for whoever or whatever may implement an Android version. I’d feel honored.
I don't mind at all. The video already on the website shows the main screen with interactions over time. The only other screen (except for the basic info screen with links) is the "edit" dialog on the second static screenshot below. The "add" dialog is the same view with a different header. If you tell me what else you'd need, I will see what I can do.
Yes, it’s the first big image below the intro text on the website. You may need to wait a moment for it to auto-play. It is a self-served video file, no YT embed.
Thanks for asking! I do agree that would be useful, but haven't looked into how sync could possibly work while keeping my claims and principles of "fully local" up. I will definitely look into it.
I need something like this, but haven't been able to find anything. I'm mildly ASD and having time boxed todo items in an easy "this is what you need to do next, tick it off when it's done" way is basically the only thing that works for my brain. Many years ago I used to have a macOS menubar app that let you arrange your tasks on a timeline of the day, it was magnificent.
I kept OwnTime strictly separate from todos. There are so many great apps for that. I would consider linking priorities into external todo apps, e.g. if it would be possible to deep link into a certain group of todos in the app of your choice. So you could go OwnTime -> priority -> switch to todos associated with that priority.
What Pomodoro doesn't show you and is at the heart of this app: the things you neglect, front and center, not in the shape of todos (and bad feelings) but it the shape of your personal priorities.
Relatedly - I've struggled a lot in the last year with time tracking for fixed price projects (not so important, but useful) and billable hours (very important) largely due to the amount of parallelism I now do; and I think this notion of a "chess clock" may unblock me on building my own tracker for this!
Yes, I'd feel honored if the concept gained traction.
Btw, good luck with Fable working with Watch Connectivity and AlarmKit. I mean, it does try hard. ;-)
Can you add a feature like that or point me to a similar app?
Yes, some type of regular notification similar to the one-time wrap-up notification is something I would definetely consider. This overlaps with the Pomodoro-type of apps, which is why it wasn't top priority for me so far.
Was initially confused as to what the total of the ring was — took me a moment to realise it's 100% of the time allocated, not the whole day or the workday. I'd probably want to always allocate 24 hours of tasks (including sleep and downtime) just to get a 24 hour ring.
Actually, there is no limit on how much you allocate, even 25h works (yes, might be considered a bug). But that's not the idea. The app is meant to help balance things that pull you in and eat your time without you noticing against those that want you to come and get them actively and intentionally and would never call for you.
Edit: ... and those things usually sum up to much less than 24h, because sleep is in neither category (at least for me); I mean, it does pull you in, but it also lets you go when it's time. :-)
Counting up would be preferred for me on some tasks. Sometimes the timesheet approach is needed, it'd be great if you could support both.
You could set up a priority with the minimum budget (15m) and log everything as "over work". Of course, that will lack visibility in the chart.
I also don’t understand what the different colored parts of the ring represent.
"Still yours" shows the total time available over all priorities.
The different ring segments represent the time allocated (available=light and used=dark) of each priority in the color you assigned to that priorty.
This looks really nice. Definitely giving it a try now. I will come back with feedback and suggestions
There is no such feature currently. The way I use it is that I simply ignore it on weekends.
What behaviour would you expect from a weekend mode?
On weekdays I have configured 8 hours of work (that I might still subdivide later). On weekends I would like to replace that block with "Chores" and "Nap" :)
I hear you. Not in love with those particular colors either. I need (a) 5 light + 5 dark colors (b) that are pairwise discernible when next to each other and (c) don't get confused immediately with Apple's Activity rings. That last (c) unfortunately rules out many popular open/free color schemes from charting libraries I know.
I'm no expert on colors (nor typography), so will gladly take input from anyone more proficient than me.
The “Live” label looks like a Claudism. For the rest, you should be fine when you use the semantic fonts + size presets provided by Apple. They also set decent values for tracking depending on size and will react to global a11y size settings.
Android: not yet, and not from me. But stay tuned; given the interest this saw today, I hope someone with Android skills (that I'm lacking) will jump in.
And in my experience, Claude's first results are fine for a preview, but less so for a reliable product. You can get there, but only if you can follow or even guide the engineering and make the right decisions and tradeoffs along the way. I would definitely need to learn Android to work with Claude.
Don't get me wrong, but I can't allocate that time atm. And I don't think I'm the best person to do it.
I guess, if there is interest, it will be possible to use the website as a guidance for whoever or whatever may implement an Android version. I’d feel honored.
Preset color themes would be nice to have :)
You can add as many priorities as you want.
You can do and track "over work" as well. It is displayed as negative budget, but not indicated in the chart.
I kept OwnTime strictly separate from todos. There are so many great apps for that. I would consider linking priorities into external todo apps, e.g. if it would be possible to deep link into a certain group of todos in the app of your choice. So you could go OwnTime -> priority -> switch to todos associated with that priority.
I know, and I didn't need a Pomodoro timer.
What Pomodoro doesn't show you and is at the heart of this app: the things you neglect, front and center, not in the shape of todos (and bad feelings) but it the shape of your personal priorities.