Comparison

TimeDraw vs Cairn

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

TimeDraw

This app transforms your calendar and reminders into a visual clockface, making your schedule easy to understand at a glance. Create and customize events with notes and recurrences directly from the main screen.

Highlights
  • Clockface schedule visualization
  • Easy event and reminder creation
  • Customizable display options
  • Smart recurrence and notes
  • Clean, modern interface
Features
Read full description

Visualize your time. TimeDraw transforms your calendar and reminders into an intuitive clockface display. Instantly understand your schedule at a glance. Events and reminders before noon are displayed as lines inside the clock, while those after noon appear outside. It’s a whole new way to understand your time. Key Features - Clockface Visualization: See all your events and reminders mapped onto an analog clock. Instantly spot your free time and busy hours. - Easy Event & Reminder Creation: Add new events or reminders right from the main screen. Set recurrences, add notes, choose custom calendars, and more—all in a few taps. - Customizable Experience: Open the settings page to personalize TimeDraw to fit your workflow. Choose which calendars to display, adjust visual preferences, and make the app truly yours. - Smart Recurrence & Notes: Support for recurring events and reminders, with the ability to add detailed notes for every item. See your day in a new way. Download TimeDraw and visualize your time!

About

Cairn

Features
Read full description

You make the promise. Cairn helps you keep it. Cairn blocks the apps that pull you away, and you decide in advance how hard it is to get back in. Not a dashboard, not a report on how bad last week was. A commitment device. THE UNLOCK LADDER Every block has a price you set when you're clear-headed, and pay when you're not: • Confirm: one tap to say you mean it. • Cooldown: wait it out, then a short window. • Effort: a puzzle, a long passphrase, or ten pushups. • In stone: no way through. It opens when it was always going to open. The top rung is only offered where a block ends on its own: a schedule that closes, a daily limit that resets, a place you can walk out of. A hard block that never lifts isn't a commitment, it's a trap with app deletion as the only key, so Cairn won't offer it. The same price applies to every way out. Turning a block off, deleting it, and editing it all cost what opening it costs. A lock you can undo by flipping a switch isn't a lock. FOUR WAYS TO BLOCK • Hard block: on until you turn it off. • Scheduled: a window on the days you choose. • Daily limit: after 30, 60, or 120 minutes, it closes for the day. • At a place: holds while you're at the gym, the office, or any set location. Plus Focus sessions and a Vacation mode that stands everything down. THE TRAIL One stone for each day you keep every block. Seven stones make a week. Cairn counts the day you resisted, not just the day you slipped, and a day it can't be sure about stays blank rather than being awarded to you. A quiet day under your limit earns its stone like any other. WE CAN'T SEE A THING Cairn has no account, no servers, and no analytics. Not "we don't sell your data"; there is no data. You pick apps in Apple's own Screen Time picker, and Cairn only ever receives an anonymous token. It can't read which apps you chose. Neither can we. If you set a daily limit, iOS counts the minutes on your device and tells Cairn only that a limit was crossed. Never how long, never which app. PAY ONCE One payment. No subscription, no ads, no upsell. Free for a month first, and when the month ends nothing is held hostage: every block you made is still there, and nothing on your phone stays blocked because you didn't pay. WHAT CAIRN WON'T DO It won't stop you deleting it. That's deliberate. iOS lets you remove any app, and a blocker that pretended otherwise would be lying. Cairn is a commitment device, not a cage. Pair it with iOS Screen Time restrictions if you want that door closed too. Be where you are.

Screenshots

TimeDraw4 screens
Cairn4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: TimeDraw at none against Cairn's 1. TimeDraw also leads on device support (3 vs 1). Cairn's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs monthly). On price, ads and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Cairn sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. TimeDraw asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

TimeDraw ships an update monthly, Cairn every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 17, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
TimeDraw versus Cairn: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTimeDrawCairn
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.0 (6 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews60.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings6 — better—
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size20 MB22 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMichael EllisDennis Hodgson

In-app purchases

None

TimeDraw

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Cairn

One-time1
  • Cairn Unlock$19.99

Questions

Is TimeDraw free?
TimeDraw is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Cairn free?
Cairn is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do TimeDraw or Cairn have ads?
Neither TimeDraw nor Cairn shows ads.
Which is updated more often, TimeDraw or Cairn?
TimeDraw ships an update monthly, and Cairn every 2 weeks. Most recently, TimeDraw was updated on October 24, 2026 and Cairn on October 17, 2026.

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