Tesseract vs Halftime
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Tesseract
This app offers a unique emotional journaling experience inspired by interstellar travel. It allows users to record memories in an immersive 3D interface, transforming diary entries into cosmic coordinates. Features include voice dictation, AI prompts, and secure iCloud syncing.
- Immersive 3D Tesseract interface
- Voice dictation journaling
- AI-powered journaling prompts
- Aesthetic writing with animations
- Secure iCloud sync
- Privacy-first design
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Keep your days in a photo diary that brings memories to life. Tesseract gives your words and photos a universe of starlight, rain, and black holes. Write a little today, then return to the moments you want to remember. ◆ A space to revisit your memories Motion and depth bring the atmosphere of each entry back to life. Browse your diary horizontally, vertically, or in a grid. ◆ Words and photos that come alive Eleven visual themes inspired by starlight, rain, wormholes, and black holes add motion and depth to your words and photos. Adjust effect intensity and photo placement in supported themes to create your own atmosphere. ◆ Your day in words and photos Write a quick thought or a longer entry, at your own pace. Add photos to hold on to the moments words alone can’t capture. ◆ Revisit past entries Find any memory quickly with the calendar and search. The On This Day widget brings one past entry back to your Home Screen. ◆ Journaling Suggestions to help you begin On iPhone, bring photos, reflection prompts, and places into an entry from Apple’s Journaling Suggestions. Save text you use often as templates to make your next entry easier to begin. ◆ Personal by choice Start without an account. New entries are stored on your device. Lock individual entries with Face ID or Touch ID. With Pro, choose whether to enable iCloud sync. ◆ Tesseract Pro Use every visual theme, create custom folders, and add up to ten photos to each entry. With iCloud sync enabled, continue your diary across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Key features - Eleven visual themes, including free and Pro themes - Spatial presentation for words and photos - Two photos per entry, or up to ten with Pro - Horizontal, vertical, and grid layouts - Calendar and search - Diary templates and writing reminders - On This Day Home Screen widget - Face ID or Touch ID lock for individual entries - Real-time voice dictation on supported devices - Markdown text import and export - Custom folders and optional iCloud sync with Pro An ordinary day can become a scene you will want to revisit. Keep today’s memory in your own universe with Tesseract. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Halftime
Visualize your life's progress and remaining time through a unique dot-based matrix. Track days, weeks, years, and significant events with focus timers and shareable progress cards. Designed for mindful living and intentional time management.
- Visual Time Matrix
- Life Progress Visualization
- Focus Timer
- Special Day Trackers
- Home and Lock Screen Widgets
- Apple Watch Support
- Shareable Timeline Cards
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How much time do you actually have left? Halftime helps you see time clearly, from the next hour to the shape of your entire life. Instead of hiding time inside lists, charts, or abstract numbers, Halftime turns your day, week, month, year, and life into a quiet matrix of dots. Each dot is a moment. Some have passed. Some are still ahead. Some can still be filled with focus, meaning, and intention. Halftime is not a traditional to-do list, habit tracker, or productivity system. It is a visual time tracker designed to help you understand where you are, what matters, and how you want to spend the time you still have. Key Features • Visual Time Matrix See your Day, Week, Month, Year, and Life as clean dot-based timelines. Zoom from the micro view of today to the macro view of your life. • Life Progress Set your birthday and expected lifespan to visualize your life progress in weeks and years. A simple, powerful reminder to make the present count. • Focus Timer Start a focused session with a simple gesture. Turn passing time into visible progress and transform grey dots into colorful records of attention. • Special Days Track birthdays, anniversaries, trips, deadlines, goals, and meaningful moments with countdowns and progress views. • Home Screen and Lock Screen Widgets Keep your Life, Day, Week, Month, Year, and Special Days progress visible without opening the app. • Apple Watch Support Check your time progress from your wrist. Add Halftime complications to your watch face for Life, Year, Month, Week, Day, and selected Special Days. • Visual Heatmap Your effort is more than a number. Watch your timeline light up as you focus, build routines, and create a visual record of how your time is spent. • Shareable Timeline Cards Create clean visual cards for your time progress and share your Day, Month, Year, or Life timeline. Why Halftime? Halftime is for people who want to: • Feel the passage of time more clearly • Track life progress without anxiety or clutter • Build focus with a minimal timer • Visualize habits, effort, and attention • Remember important dates and countdowns • Use widgets and Apple Watch complications as gentle reminders • Spend less time scrolling and more time living Design Philosophy Halftime is intentionally simple. No ads. No noisy social features. No complicated project systems. No endless settings. Just a calm, visual way to understand time and make better choices with it. Time does not become longer when you track it. But when you can see it, you can choose it more deliberately. Stop scrolling. Start living. Welcome to Halftime. Take control of your second half. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://limxfx.notion.site/Privacy-Policy-21528332de66804d9c3fcacd01e709b1
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Halftime at 5.0 against Tesseract's 4.5. Halftime also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 78%) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Tesseract's advantage is ratings volume (110 vs 4). 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. Tesseract sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Halftime sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Halftime holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Tesseract has 110 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 78% of Tesseract's written reviews are positive against 100% of Halftime's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Tesseract | Halftime |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (110 ratings) | 5.0 (4 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 78.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 110 — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Fortnightly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Goateraction | 虎 伏 |
Customer experience
Tesseract
Halftime
Bugs and requests
Tesseract
Reported bugs
12 issues- Data deletion after app updates
- Journal entries disappearing after switching apps
- Edit button causing app crashes
- Photos disappearing when adding new ones
- Photos disappearing after editing entries
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- iCloud sync not working between iPhone and iPad
- Bluetooth keyboard Enter key not functioning
- App freezing and lagging
- Text alignment issues in display view
- Paragraph spacing issues in display view
- Premium features not working after subscription
- App crashes on edit button press
Requested features
16 requests- Customizable theme colors and backgrounds
- Additional font options (especially for Chinese)
- PDF export functionality
- iCloud sync support
- Auto-save functionality
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- Photo position/placement control
- Galaxy map/note clustering visualization
- Auto-scroll features
- Pin/favorite entries functionality
- Search functionality
- Weather integration
- Image filters
- macOS version
- Customizable line spacing
- Live photo support
- Adjustable text size for long entries
Halftime
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Tesseract
- Monthly$1.991 Month
- Annual$4.991 Year
- Lifetime$12.99
Halftime
- Monthly3 Days trial$0.991 Month
- Yearly3 Days trial$6.991 Year
- Lifetime$8.99









