Cal Countdown vs Ember
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Cal Countdown
This app automatically displays a color-coded countdown to your next calendar event. It's designed for quick glances on your Apple Watch face or iPhone "Today" screen, helping you manage your schedule efficiently without manual calculations.
- Automatic countdown to next calendar event
- Color-coded urgency indicators
- Apple Watch complication support
- iPhone "Today" widget
- Calendar data integration
- Option to skip specific events
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"Cal Countdown" is a free, simple iOS & Apple Watch app that automatically creates a color-coded countdown to the next event on your calendar and displays it on your Apple Watch face and/or your "Today" screen. The app is primarily intended to be used as a complication on your Apple Watch or as a widget. If your days are anything like ours, packed with various meetings scattered throughout the day, every time you check your calendar, you're trying to figure out one thing: How much time do I have until my next appointment? So, you glance at your watch, note the start time of your next appointment, and calculate the difference between the current time and your next event. We got tired of doing this mental calculation many times a day, but much to our surprise, we could not find an existing iOS application that would do this chore for us. So we decided to build it ourselves. Now, every time we glance at our watch, it immediately tells us what we want to know: How much time do I have until my next appointment? The app's color changes from blue to green to yellow to orange to red as you approach the start of your next event. (6+ hours = Blue, 2-6 hours = Green, 1-2 = Yellow, 30-60 mins = Orange, 0-30 mins = Red) Cal Countdown supports all the different Apple Watch complications. All Apple Watch complications that support multi-color will be color-coded (but not all watch complications support multiple colors.) Using "Cal Countdown" is as easy as it gets. It uses the calendar data already on your phone; no signing in; no entering any usernames or passwords. The app lets you select the calendars you want to include or not in your calendar countdowns. Don't have an Apple Watch? You can still use Cal Countdown on your phone as an iPhone/iPad app with a "Today" widget. Cal Countdown does not require an account. It does not even require an internet connection. The app uses the calendar data already on your iPhone. It's completely secure. Your calendar data remains completely private, and never leaves your phone. Cal Countdown also has the ability to ignore or skip certain events on your calendar. This feature is especially useful if you have shared calendars with your family, friends, or colleagues. We often have events on our calendars that we need to know about, but may not be attending ourselves. If you want Cal Countdown to ignore or skip these events and start counting down to the following event on your calendar, just tap the "Ignore" button, and Cal Countdown will immediately start a countdown to the following event.
Ember
This app turns your tasks and habits into a "fire" that grows as you complete them. Track todos, habits, focus sessions, and even steps, with a unique 4 AM reset time. Enjoy a distraction-free experience with customizable notifications.
- Task and habit tracking
- Virtual "fire" reward system
- Focus timer with bonus rounds
- Meditation and breathing timer
- Step count integration
- Customizable notifications
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Ember is a habit tracker that pays you in fire. Write down what needs doing. A task is worth one to five logs; finish it and the bundle goes on the fire. That is the whole deal: the work is the fuel. THE WALL OF EMBERS A habit is an ember. Relight it every day and the streak grows. Miss one and the record says so, honestly, because a tracker that flatters you is not tracking anything. Meeting the goal is what pays: two of three glasses is nothing yet. WHAT THE FIRE KEEPS Todos and quests, with tags and five-log entries A focus timer with a bonus round and a fortnight of sittings behind it Meditation and breathing, timed, with a proper bell A shopping list that remembers what you buy Your step count, read from Health, turned into timber for the fire THE DAY ROLLS AT 4AM One in the morning belongs to the evening behind it. Habits reset at four, not at midnight, because that is when a day actually ends. NOTHING NOISY No ads. No streaks-are-about-to-die panic. No "we miss you". The only notifications are the ones you set: the bell when your meditation is up, the nudge when a focus sitting ends, and your own alarms. MEMBERSHIP Free lights three embers a day. Everything else is free for everyone: the quests, the routines, the timers, cloud sync. Membership lifts the one cap. Weekly and yearly plans are auto-renewing subscriptions charged to your Apple Account. They renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the period ends, and you can manage or cancel in Settings. Any unused part of a free trial is forfeited when you buy a subscription. Privacy Policy: https://www.playembergame.com/privacy Terms of Use: https://www.playembergame.com/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ads: Cal Countdown at none against Ember's shown. Cal Countdown also leads on monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases) and ratings volume (21 vs 1). Ember's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.6). On price, rating, in-app purchases and device support 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Cal Countdown against 5.0 for Ember. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cal Countdown has 21 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
| Parameter | Cal Countdown | Ember |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (21 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 94.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 21 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 months | — |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 35 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Franck Reyherme | Poxi AS |
Customer experience
Cal Countdown
Ember
In-app purchases
Cal Countdown
No in-app purchases
Ember
No in-app purchases









