Play Designer vs Thirty Second Timeout
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Play Designer
This app helps basketball coaches create, share, and explain plays, practices, and drills. It features a customizable digital whiteboard, video recording, and shot charting tools to enhance team communication and training.
- Record and share play and drill videos
- Create and manage custom practices
- Access and build a drill library
- Professional-grade shot charting
- Customizable digital whiteboard with court dimensions
- Team roster and lineup management
- AirPlay support for team presentations
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The modern basketball coach’s playbook: design plays, plan practice, organize drills, and teach your team clearly. Elite Hoops gives basketball coaches one place to design plays, build practices, organize drills, and teach more clearly. Used by over 18,000 coaches and trainers, from Division 1 to AAU to youth hoops. The star of Elite Hoops is our play designer that's approachable, affordable and advanced. Build polished, detailed plays frame by frame, show player movement with precision, organize everything with tags, smart tags call out screens and actions, and present concepts in a way players can actually follow. And when you need to draw something up fast, the Digital Whiteboard that coaches have used to share over 10,000 plays is right here too. But Elite Hoops is more than just a play tool. It brings together the full coaching workflow across plays, practices, and drills. Build practices from your device, create your own drill library, track with shot charts, record breakdown videos, and share everything with players and staff. Or, create a practice in a pinch with our AI practice builder, which uses your drills and learns from your team's practice to customize them. Preparing for practice, installing a set, or adjusting in-game, Elite Hoops helps you coach with more detail and less friction. New: the Play Bank. Hundreds of animated plays with notes on every step, ready to add to your playbook in one tap. -- Elite Hoops Features -- · Play Designer: ⤍ Build animated plays frame by frame with detailed movement and timing and create playbooks. ⤍ Organize plays with tags so your playbook stays easy to search and manage. ⤍ Show real lineups, spacing, actions, and concepts with far more clarity. · Play Bank: ⤍ Hundreds of animated plays: Horns, Flex, presses, inbounds sets, and more, with notes on every step. ⤍ Add any play to your playbook in one tap, then edit it like your own. · Digital Whiteboard: ⤍ Quickly draw up one-off plays, counters, out-of-bounds actions, and defensive concepts. ⤍ Share images fast when you need to teach on the fly. · Practice Planner: ⤍ Create and run practices from your device. ⤍ Print or share your practice plans as a .pdf. · Drill Library: ⤍ Use our 200+ drills or build your own personalized drill library. ⤍ Keep your best drills organized and ready for every session. · Share Links: ⤍ Create a share link for any play, practice, or drill, and turn it off anytime. ⤍ Send coaching material to players and staff without exporting a file. · Video Export: ⤍ Record and export breakdown videos of your plays, drills, and concepts to share anywhere. · Shot Charts: ⤍ Track makes and misses during games, scrimmages, or training. ⤍ Review trends with a fast, coach-friendly shot chart tool. · Customizable Court: ⤍ NBA, FIBA, WNBA, NCAA, EuroLeague, and High School court dimensions. ⤍ Your own court color, hardwood styles, and boundary line colors. · Team Plans: ⤍ Invite unlimited coaches, players, and parents by email, link, or code. ⤍ Coaches edit the plays, practices, and drills; players and parents view them. · Team Tools: ⤍ Add as many teams as you coach, with rosters, jersey numbers, and team colors. · Coaching Tools: ⤍ Add an opposing team to demonstrate actions and counters. ⤍ Show zone and press defenses with Zone Overlays. ⤍ Sub players on the court. · Built for Apple devices: ⤍ Full Apple Pencil support. ⤍ AirPlay to a TV and show the whole team. -- LEGAL -- · View our terms of service here: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ · View our privacy policy here: https://www.elitehoopsapp.com/privacy Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your iTunes account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage your subscriptions in Account Settings after purchase.
Thirty Second Timeout
Create, animate, and share basketball plays with professional diagrams. This tool allows coaches and players to sketch plays on a court, showing player movements and sequences step-by-step. It also includes a shot chart for practice and game analysis.
- Draw and animate basketball plays
- Professional court diagrams
- Multi-frame play sequences
- Export plays as images/PDFs
- Practice and game shot charting
- Analyze shooting data
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• Draw, animate, and share basketball plays in seconds. Thirty Second Timeout is the playbook built for coaches and players who need clear, professional diagrams fast. • Sketch full plays on a real court with player markers, movement paths, cuts, passes, screens, and dribbles. Build multi-frame sequences to show exactly how a play develops, then export and share with your team instantly. • Explore shooting data with our practice and game shot chart Thirty Second Timeout gives basketball coaches and players a simple way to draw, organize, and share plays from anywhere. Build clear court diagrams using player markers, movement paths, cuts, passes, screens, dribbles, and the basketball. Create multiple frames to show how a play develops step by step, add notes, customize your court, and share finished plays with your team. Features include: • Create basketball plays on a customizable court • Position offensive and defensive players • Draw cuts, passes, screens, dribbles, and movement paths • Curve and adjust paths directly on the court • Organize plays across multiple frames • Add notes and action steps • View individual frames in full screen • Export and share plays as convenient images or PDFs • Chart shooting for workouts • Chart shooting for full games • Analyze and filter shot chart data Whether you are preparing for practice, explaining an in-game adjustment, or building your playbook, Thirty Second Timeout helps make every action easy to understand.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Thirty Second Timeout at none against Play Designer's 17. Thirty Second Timeout also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.6). Play Designer's advantage is ratings volume (763 vs 1) and update cadence (every 6 days vs fortnightly). On price, ads, device support 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
Both are free to download. Play Designer sells 17 in-app purchases, starting at $7.00 per 7 days. Thirty Second Timeout asks for nothing beyond the download.
Thirty Second Timeout holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Play Designer has 763 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Play Designer ships an update every 6 days, Thirty Second Timeout fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Play Designer | Thirty Second Timeout |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (763 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 91.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 763 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.5 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 195 MB | 21 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Day Well Spent LLC | Thomas Fabian |
Customer experience
Play Designer
Thirty Second Timeout
Bugs and requests
Play Designer
Reported bugs
2 issues- Recording issues with no sound and inability to close/discard videos
- Crashes and freezes on some devices
Requested features
3 requests- Ability to design and animate plays
- More advanced player movement and positioning features
- Free recording and playback functionality
Thirty Second Timeout
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Play Designer
- Weekly Tournament Pass$7.007 Days
- Tournament Pass$7.997 Days
- Unlimited access$9.991 Month
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- Elite Hoops Pro$10.007 Days
- Elite Hoops Pro Monthly3 Days trial$12.991 Month
- Elite Hoops Pro$12.991 Month
- Elite Hoops Pro Monthly$12.991 Month
- Elite Hoops Pro Quarterly3 Days trial$24.993 Months
- Elite Hoops Pro$24.993 Months
- Season Pass7 Days trial$25.003 Months
- Unlimited access3 Days trial$39.991 Year
- Elite Hoops Pro7 Days trial$45.001 Year
- Elite Hoops Pro3 Days trial$49.991 Year
- Elite Hoops Pro$59.991 Year
- Elite Hoops Pro7 Days trial$59.991 Year
- Elite Hoops Pro7 Days trial$65.001 Year
- Unlimited access$149.99
Thirty Second Timeout
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Play Designer free?
Is Thirty Second Timeout free?
Which has better reviews, Play Designer or Thirty Second Timeout?
Do Play Designer or Thirty Second Timeout have ads?
Which is updated more often, Play Designer or Thirty Second Timeout?
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