SelfPush vs Halo

The notes that get through to you are the ones you wrote yourself. SelfPush lets you write a few lines today and have them show up on your lock screen later, as an ordinary push notification, when you are most likely to need them. WRITE NOW, RECEIVE LATER - Save short messages in your own words, as many as you like - Pick a daily push time in Settings. Each day SelfPush sends one of your saved messages, picked at random - Or give a single message its own date and time, for the morning of an exam, a hard conversation or a deadline - Tap the push to read the message full screen, signed "from your past self" - Edit, reschedule or delete any message whenever you like THREE TABS Messages holds your list and shows the next push. Alerts is a history of the pushes that have already arrived. Settings has the push time, the daily on and off switch and a test push that lands right away, so you can see how it will look. GOOD TO KNOW SelfPush schedules your daily pushes two weeks ahead on the phone and tops that window up whenever you open the app, so open it now and then. Delivery also follows your phone's notification and battery settings. The notification prompt appears when you set a push time, schedule a message or send a test push, not when you launch the app. ABOUT THE AD SelfPush is free and shows one small banner at the bottom of the Alerts tab. The Messages tab, Settings and the full-screen message have no ads. Where the law requires it (the EEA and UK), a consent form asks about ads before any of them load, and Settings gets an Ad privacy options row for changing your answer later. On iPhone, the system tracking prompt appears only if that form allows it. Decline either one and every feature keeps working. There is no account and no server of ours. Your messages, schedule and history are stored on the phone, and the ad request is the only thing the app sends out on its own. LANGUAGES SelfPush speaks English, Korean, Japanese and Simplified Chinese, switching with your phone's language. Questions or feedback: contact+selfpush@peppertree.so

Most Pomodoro apps go silent between beeps. Halo doesn't. Pick brown noise, pink noise, or rain, and the sound follows every focus block. When the break starts, it fades. When the next block begins, it comes back. That's the difference. WHAT'S INSIDE A Pomodoro timer with your own focus, short-break, and long-break lengths. Auto-start the next phase or step through manually. Skip or reset at any time. Three ambient beds bundled with the app, not streamed. Brown noise for heads-down work. Pink noise for reading. Rain for the last hour of the day. A completion sound picker too: Off, Default, Chime, Bell, Soft. Tag each session by subject. General, Calculus, Design, Reading, whatever you're on. See the week broken down per subject so you know where the hours actually went. A daily focus goal (2 hours out of the box, editable), a streak that counts consecutive days you hit it, a weekly bar chart, and all-time totals. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN A Live Activity and Dynamic Island keep the countdown on your Lock Screen while you switch apps. Home-screen widgets in four sizes: Today, Streak, Stats, and This week. Full light and dark mode, follows your system. English, Espanol, Francais. WHAT'S NOT INSIDE No account. No sign-in. No cloud. No analytics. No third-party SDKs. No ads. No tracking. Everything is stored on your device. Uninstall Halo and the data goes with it. Settings has a Reset all data button if you want to wipe it without deleting the app. The only permission Halo asks for is notifications, so it can tell you when a session ends. It also uses Live Activities and Background App Refresh so the countdown stays accurate. No camera, microphone, photos, contacts, calendar, location, HealthKit, or motion access, ever. Halo works fully offline. There is no network call in the app. Free. That's the whole story.