Countdown vs Shwidget
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Countdown
Visually track important dates and goals with customizable widgets for your Home Screen and Lock Screen. Set up countdowns and count-ups for personal milestones, habits, or deadlines. Sync across devices and receive timely notifications.
- Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets
- Count up and down timers
- Recurrent event tracking
- Calendar and Reminders synchronization
- Customizable designs and templates
- iCloud synchronization
- Notifications for key dates
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Track time with beautiful countdown widgets on your Home Screen and Lock Screen. Get the results you want by adding beautiful ALWAYS ON motivational countdowns to the device you use every day. On your wrist? On your Mac? Pretty Progress works there, too. Our objective is to support you achieve your goals. We beautifully track your goals so you don’t have to. What better place to remind yourself of the things that matter than the devices you use every day? Your life goals, your health routines, your personal habits, when your newborn arrives, the deadline of your PhD or your mother’s birthday… No matter what your goal is. Pretty Progress gives you beautiful countdowns with widgets to customize and track them all: - Count up & down towards a specific date or with a timer - Create recurrent events and count the days periodically - Synchronize and import Apple Calendar events and Reminders - Show the percentage of completion, how much time is left or how much time has past (time since). In years, months, weeks, days... or a combination of them - Beautiful and unique designs. 6 different templates to customize and add to your Home Screen, Lock Screen, Stand By (iOS 17), and Watch complications - Customize colors, icons, layout, fonts, size... and every little aspect of the countdown at any time. Create your own personal Home Screen and Watch Face - A dashboard to visualize all the timers and day counters created and understand your deadlines, goals, achievements, or recurrent tasks - Notifications: 1 week and 1 day before, and at the end of your countdown, and every day, week, month or year after your habit streak - A library to get inspired and create widgets easily - 3 different sizes for the Home Screen widgets: small, medium, and large - All Lock Screen widgets localizations available - All complication sizes for Watch Faces supported - Dark mode support - iCloud synchronization. Sync your countdowns on your iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac (Silicon) automatically - Family sharing enabled for the PRO purchase WHAT CAN YOU TRACK? - Health routines - Personal habits progress - Countdown to Christmas - Days until your mother's birthday - Countdown to your next holidays - Days until your project release deadline - Days left until your next trip - Percentage of your gym routine complete - Days left until your wedding anniversary - Days until retirement - Days until your financial independence - Percentage of the year, month, week... - Days left until your kombucha is fermented - How many days you have left on your vacations - Countdown to tax submission - Days until your new child arrives - Countdown to that important exam - Days until your graduation - Percentage of the academic year left - Days until Superbowl - My love countdown - Streak of days of habits - Daily, weekly and monthly tasks - Time until your new job WE WOULD LOVE YOUR FEEDBACK: We love to improve, so any feedback is always welcome! For any question, issue, suggestion or anything you want to say, contact at: hi@prettyprogress.app ======================= The free version of Pretty Progress includes four custom countdown widgets with two designs, the default daily, weekly, monthly and yearly progress and some customization options. If you purchase Pretty Progress PRO, the payment will be charged to your iTunes account. If you purchase a monthly or yearly subscription, your account will automatically be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current subscription period unless you disable auto-renew. You can turn off auto-renewal at any time by going to your Account Settings on the App Store after purchase. ======================= Terms of Service: https://prettyprogress.app/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://prettyprogress.app/privacy-policy
Shwidget
Display your Google Sheets data directly on your iOS device's Home or Lock Screen. Monitor key values and KPIs automatically without needing to open the Sheets app.
- Display Google Sheets data in widgets
- Automatic widget updates
- Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets
- No account required
- Privacy-friendly data handling
- Easy setup with Sheet and Cell IDs
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Do you have a KPI or important value in Google Sheets that updates automatically, and you want to monitor it without constantly opening the Sheets app? Meet Shwidget, your solution! Shwidget is an iOS app that lets you display any Google Sheets cell value directly in a widget on your device. It automatically updates via iOS’s widget system, meaning you can keep tabs on your important data right from your Home or Lock Screen, without the need to check the Sheets app manually. Key Features: * Automatic updates using iOS’s widget update system. * Home Screen widgets in various sizes, as well as Lock Screen widgets. * Privacy-friendly: No account required, and your data never leaves your device. SETTING IT UP Getting started is easy! All you need is the Sheet ID and the Cell IDs of the data you want to display. Optionally, you can add titles for each value, which will appear in the widget for clarity. 1. Find the Sheet ID: This is the long string of characters in your Google Sheets URL (without the dashes). 2. Set Sharing Permissions: Make sure the sheet is set to “Anyone with the link” and read-only to allow Shwidget to fetch the data securely. Once you’ve set these up in the app, Shwidget takes care of the rest. The widget will automatically update at regular intervals thanks to iOS’s background system. PRO TIPS * How to Find the Sheet ID: Open your Google Sheet, and the ID is the long string of random characters in the URL between the slashes. For example: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1CMvaCWBAsrAftZjT5nXlntTUsnmkkZDlxMkXhAd_sBs/ In this case, the Sheet ID is: 1CMvaCWBAsrAftZjT5nXlntTUsnmkkZDlxMkXhAd_sBs. Paste only this ID into the Shwidget app. (Tip: Double-check you’re not copying the entire URL!) * Sharing Permissions: Ensure your sheet’s general access is set to “Anyone with the link” and role set to “Viewer” to allow Shwidget access without making unnecessary changes to your security settings. * If your widget says "ERROR empty cell?" Then the cell is empty OR sharing is not properly done OR typo in the cell field. Trust me, its one of these. * Data Privacy: If you’re concerned about sharing sensitive data, consider creating a “proxy” spreadsheet and use Google Sheets’ IMPORTRANGE function to pull only the necessary data into a separate sheet that’s shared with Shwidget. EXAMPLE SETUP Test Shwidget with the example sheet below: Sheet ID: 1CMvaCWBAsrAftZjT5nXlntTUsnmkkZDlxMkXhAd_sBs Try cell IDs like D1, D2, D3 or E1-E7, and open the sheet to see the expected values. FREE vs PRO The free version of Shwidget lets you add one row or data field per widget. To unlock more rows, upgrade to the KPI Lover subscription for expanded functionality. The free version also includes a logo on the home screen widget and a subject text on the lock screen widget, which you can remove by subscribing. No hidden fees, no gimmicks — just more features and a cleaner experience! Cheers, Mikko P.S. Your feedback is always welcome! Drop me a line at mikko_a_appsipaja.fi. Terms of use, standard Apple Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Countdown at 4.7 against Shwidget's 3.4. Countdown also leads on review sentiment (82% vs 50%) and ratings volume (3K vs 5). Shwidget's advantage is iOS requirement (16.1 vs 18.0). On price, update cadence, 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. Countdown sells 14 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Shwidget sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Countdown holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Countdown has 3K ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 82% of Countdown's written reviews are positive against 50% of Shwidget's.
Countdown ships an update every 10 days, Shwidget fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and August 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Countdown | Shwidget |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (3K ratings) — better | 3.4 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 81.6% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3K — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 16.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 183 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | keinois OU | Appsipaja Oy |
Customer experience
Countdown
Shwidget
Bugs and requests
Countdown
Reported bugs
3 issues- App crashes on launch for some users
- Widgets not updating in real-time as expected
- Countdown data resetting unexpectedly
Requested features
5 requests- More customization options for widgets
- Ability to track non-time-based progress
- Improved recurring event management
- Notification/alarm feature when countdown ends
- Wider range of color and font options
Shwidget
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Countdown
- Unlimited access7 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Unlimited access7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Pretty Progress PRO (Weekly)$4.997 Days
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- Pretty Progress PRO (Weekly)3 Days trial$4.997 Days
- Pretty Progress PRO (Monthly)7 Days trial2 variants$4.991 Month
- Unlimited access7 Days trial$5.991 Year
- Unlimited access7 Days trial$8.991 Year
- Pretty Progress Pro (Annual)7 Days trial3 variants$14.991 Year
- Pretty Progress Pro (Annual)1 Year trial$24.991 Year
- Pretty Progress Pro (Annual)$24.991 Year
- Pretty Progress PRO (Lifetime)$29.99
- Pretty Progress PRO (Lifetime)$34.99
- Pretty Progress PRO (Lifetime)2 variants$49.99
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- Pretty Progress PRO (Lifetime)$59.99
Shwidget
- Monthly payment7 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Yearly payment7 Days trial$19.991 Year









