Cuckoo Timer vs Thiro
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Cuckoo Timer
This app helps you manage tasks and cultivate skills by tracking time spent on each activity. It links tasks to specific skills, allowing you to visualize your progress towards mastery and achieve your 10,000-hour goals.
- Classical time tracking for tasks
- Task management with skill attribution
- Skill cultivation progress visualization
- Daily beautiful background pictures
- Full-screen focus mode
- Task priority setting
- iCloud sync
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Task management combined with 10,000 hours rule. It takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a field. We work not just for work, we complete our tasks not just for tasks themselves. In fact, what we want are SKILLS! Every task completed should end up with a better SKILL. ***What Cuckoo Can Do For You*** 1. Classical Time Tracking: Track time spent for every task you created. 2. Task Management: Shake your device to quickly add new Tasks, attribute your Task to a certain Skill that you want to cultivate. 3. Skill Cultivation: Tasks are for improving your skills. You can link multiple Tasks to one Skill, and time spent on those tasks will be summed as the total time of the Skill. So that you can see clearly how your skills grow towards 10,000 hours. ***More Features*** 1. A new beautiful background picture everyday; 2. Full-screen focus mode to focus on your work; 3. Advanced features such as task priority setting, iCloud sync. Privacy Policy & Use of Terms Link:https://cuckoo2017.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/布谷布谷隐私政策/
Thiro
This app helps you concentrate on your work and study by providing a focus timer and time tracking for each task. Set goals, manage tasks in groups, and view detailed statistics to improve your productivity. It syncs seamlessly across all your Apple devices.
- Focus timer
- Time tracking
- Task management
- Goal setting
- Cross-device sync
- Detailed statistics
- Customizable appearance
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Thiro is a focus timer that helps you focus on everything you do. It helps you concentrate on tasks in your study and work by tracking the time you spend on each task. STAY FOCUSED: - Keep track of each of your focus sessions as a timer or manually add a period of focus time. - Set daily/monthly/yearly goals for your tasks and keep moving forward. - Set countdown notification for every focusing session. - Manage tasks in groups to keep everything in order. - Archive finished tasks to help you focus more on your work or study at the moment. - View detailed statistics of your time distribution. FOCUS EVERYWHERE: - Seamlessly use Thiro on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac. Sync across all your devices using iCloud. - Just start a focus session on one of your devices, and it will be seamlessly synced to all your devices. MORE THOUGHTFUL FEATURES: - Night-owl Mode: Records between 0:00 and 4:00 will be counted in the previous day's statistics. Statistics will not be interrupted even if you stay up late working or studying. - Zen Mode: Accompany your work or study as a desktop clock. - Notes: Jot down your ideas after finishing a session. - Custom Appearance: Change theme and chart colors. - Turn over to Start: Turn the phone over to start a focus session. - Widgets: View your statistics on the home screen. - Siri & Shortcuts: Track your focus in a more automated way.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Cuckoo Timer at every 4 days against Thiro's every 5 weeks. Cuckoo Timer also leads on ratings volume (319 vs 49). Thiro's advantage is review sentiment (83% vs 71%) and device support (5 vs 3). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Cuckoo Timer sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Thiro sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Cuckoo Timer against 4.8 for Thiro. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cuckoo Timer has 319 ratings behind it against 49, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 71% of Cuckoo Timer's written reviews are positive against 83% of Thiro's.
Cuckoo Timer ships an update every 4 days, Thiro every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and August 28, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Cuckoo Timer | Thiro |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (319 ratings) | 4.8 (49 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 71.1% of reviews | 83.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 319 — better | 49 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 13.4 — better | 14.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 54 MB | 63 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 俊航 何 | 博宇 秦 |
Customer experience
Cuckoo Timer
Thiro
User reviews
Cuckoo Timer
From 319 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎨 Clean, minimalist, and beautiful interface design
- 👍 Simple and intuitive to use
- ⏱️ Effective Pomodoro timer functionality
- 💡 Innovative 10,000 hours tracking concept
- 🎵 Calm and soothing audio experience
Room to improve
- 🌐 Incomplete English translation throughout app
- 🐛 Language setting doesn't fully apply to all text
- 🔧 Multiple bugs on Mac M1 devices
- ⏸️ Timer stops when phone is locked
- 🎵 Music cannot be disabled (only 4 preset options)
Thiro
From 49 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Clean and simple UI
- 👍 Easy to use
- 👍 Good statistics
- 👍 Worth the price (one-time purchase)
- 👍 Minimalist design
Room to improve
- 🐛 Sync issues
- 🐛 Widget not always functional
- 🐛 App not updating
- 🐛 Duplicate time entries
- 🐛 Pomodoro functionality issues
Bugs and requests
Cuckoo Timer
Reported bugs
9 issues- Skill recording time sync issue with manually uploaded tasks
- Timer freezes and requires manual time entry
- Language setting reverts to Japanese unexpectedly
- Data loss after app update
- Skills option disappeared after update
Show 4 moreShow fewer
- Notification sound doesn't work when muted
- Manually entered tasks don't appear in daily reports
- iPad text cutoff and layout issues
- Music interruption during timer countdown
Requested features
12 requests- Complete English translation for all UI elements
- Customizable number of tasks per Pomodoro session
- Widget support for home screen
- Focus mode that discards time if app is switched
- Task deadline reminder notifications
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Daily recurring task functionality
- Time-block calendar view showing task allocation
- Ability to toggle/mute notification sounds
- Mac version of the app
- Undo/delete functionality for completed tasks
- iCloud sync across devices
- Badge notifications for pending tasks
Thiro
Reported bugs
16 issues- Widget not functional/failing
- Not registering elapsed time
- Multiple windows opening automatically
- iCloud not syncing
- Duplicate time entries
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Timer continues indefinitely
- Configurations in blocks of 5 minutes
- iCloud sync issues (conflicts, not syncing)
- Widget update not working well
- Default task becomes focused task
- Adding new tasks creates duplicates
- Stopping timer shows duplicate window
- Cloud sync not working
- Cannot modify focused time
- Cannot press buttons in the app
- Failed to purchase Pro version
Requested features
44 requests- Assign fixed color to each task
- Add default countdown mode
- Create an app for habit tracking with streaks
- Allow selection of which counter on the main screen for widget
- Add Pomodoro timer functionality
Show 39 moreShow fewer
- Allow custom break lengths
- Add countdown timer as an option
- Ability to change or turn off picture on timer
- Duplicating tasks/task groups
- Link colors on diagram to task colors
- Add focus timer and show on menu bar
- Add Siri shortcuts/API
- Hide docker icon
- Add custom images for cover illustrations
- Add end-of-task sound
- Add light pink theme
- Allow modification of completed task times
- Add more functions
- Add more cover illustrations
- Add task end sound
- Add countdown timer mode
- Add habit tracking features
- Add custom break lengths
- Add countdown timer option
- Add custom timer background
- Add option to duplicate tasks
- Link task colors to diagram colors
- Add focus timer to menu bar
- Add Siri shortcuts integration
- Allow hiding of dock icon
- Allow custom cover images
- Add task completion sound
- Add countdown timer mode
- Add habit tracking features
- Add custom break lengths
- Add countdown timer option
- Add custom timer background
- Add option to duplicate tasks
- Link task colors to diagram colors
- Add focus timer to menu bar
- Add Siri shortcuts integration
- Allow hiding of dock icon
- Allow custom cover images
- Add task completion sound
In-app purchases
Cuckoo Timer
- Pro Account$1.99
Thiro
- Thiro Pro$1.99
