Comparison

Timer vs Flip Focus

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

Head to head
About

Timer

Track your time with ease by clocking in and out of tasks. This app allows for multiple concurrent timers and provides detailed reports on how your hours are spent weekly, monthly, and yearly. It offers a private iCloud sync and a native dark interface.

Highlights
  • Concurrent timers
  • One-tap start/stop
  • Categorization with custom colors
  • Weekly, monthly, yearly reports
  • Full history with edits
  • Trim idle time
  • Private iCloud sync
Features
Read full description

Timer is a time tracker for days when you do more than one thing at once. Tap to start a task, tap to stop, and run as many timers side by side as you need. Week, month and year reports show exactly where your hours went. Free, with no ads, no account and no subscription. MADE FOR iPhone Duo Half-fold it on a desk: your running timers sit large on top, and your tasks with Clock In and Clock Out sit below. Open it flat: tasks on one side and your weekly report or history on the other, with a swap button right on screen. ON YOUR APPLE WATCH Start and stop tasks from your wrist, see today's total, and add a complication to your watch face. A Smart Stack card shows up while a timer runs, with a Stop button. Everything stays in sync with your iPhone. WHY TIMER Most time trackers make you pick one thing at a time. Real work is not like that: you start a deep work block, a build kicks off, and you read docs while it runs. Timer tracks overlapping tasks the way your day actually goes. WHAT YOU GET - Multiple timers running at the same time - One tap to start, one tap to stop - Categories with your own colors, so reports read at a glance - Week, month and year reports with stacked bars and per-task totals - History grouped by day, with quick edits and past entries you can add by hand - Trim idle time from a running entry without losing its start - Notes on any entry - Archive tasks you are done with - Private sync between your iPhone and iPad through your own iCloud account GOOD FOR Client and freelance hours, deep work, study, side projects, and anyone who wants an honest look at their week. PRIVATE No account. No ads. No analytics. Your data lives on your devices and in your own private iCloud database. In 18 languages. Made by Agentic Quarks, a small independent studio.

About

Flip Focus

Features
Read full description

Flip your phone face down. The timer starts. Lift it, and the timer stops. Flip Focus is a deep work timer for people who are tired of promising themselves they'll concentrate. There is no honour system here and no button to press when you get distracted. The session is physically bound to your phone: face down on the desk, you are working. In your hand, you are not. WHY THIS ONE HOLDS UP Every other focus timer runs happily in your pocket while you scroll something else. This one cannot. Flip Focus reads your phone's motion sensors and only accumulates time while the phone is actually face down. You cannot quietly cheat a session, which is precisely why the hours in your history mean something. START IN ONE MOVE Choose a session and flip. That is the entire ritual. No setup to work through every time you sit down, no timer to remember to start, no excuse to open the phone "just to begin". BLOCK EVERY DISTRACTING APP While a session runs, Flip Focus uses Screen Time to put your distracting apps behind a lock screen. It works as an allowlist rather than a blocklist: everything is blocked except what you deliberately permit, so a newly installed app cannot slip through a gap you forgot to close. AUTO-PAUSE KEEPS YOU HONEST Pick the phone up mid-session and the timer pauses itself and tells you to put it back down. Your streak is not broken by the pause; it is broken by pretending the pause never happened. Flip Focus simply refuses to pretend. QUITTING TAKES A MOMENT Ending a session early is still possible, it just isn't two taps any more. You copy out a short passage that makes the case for staying, then hold a button for a few seconds. Neither step is hard, and the way out is always there when you genuinely need it. It simply stops being something you can do without thinking. Most urges to quit don't survive the minute it takes. SESSIONS THAT MATCH REAL WORK Start from ready-made blocks for deep work, quick focus, study and creative work, or build your own with the length, name and colour that suit how you actually work. Long, uninterrupted blocks for hard problems. Short ones for clearing the deck. SEE WHERE THE TIME WENT After every session, mark how it went. Every minute you stay face down earns focus points, and your dashboard tracks your daily streak, personal bests, total focused time and success rate. Tap any session to turn it into a share card for your friends. Because the timer cannot be gamed, every number is real. BUILT TO STAY OUT OF THE WAY A Live Activity keeps the countdown on your Lock Screen so you can check the time remaining without unlocking anything. Haptics confirm the start and finish of a block. The app is quiet, quick and does not ask for your attention while you are trying to give it to something else. WHO IT IS FOR Engineers, writers, designers, founders, analysts, researchers, students — anyone whose output depends on long stretches of uninterrupted attention, and whose phone is the single largest threat to getting them. If you have tried focus apps before and drifted away from them, the reason is usually the same: they asked you to be disciplined about the tool itself. Flip Focus asks for one physical action, once, at the start. The desk does the rest. Flip the phone. Do the work. Privacy Policy: https://getflipfocus.com/privacy-policy/ Terms of Service: https://getflipfocus.com/terms-of-service/

Screenshots

Timer4 screens
Flip Focus4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Timer at none against Flip Focus's 3. Flip Focus's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 3 months). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Flip Focus sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Timer asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Timer ships an update every 3 months, Flip Focus every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 13, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Timer versus Flip Focus: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTimerFlip Focus
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.016.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size7 MB49 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAgentic Quarks LLCAugustine Ezeh

In-app purchases

None

Timer

No in-app purchases

3 purchases

Flip Focus

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Premium3 Days trial$3.991 Month
  • Yearly Premium3 Days trial$24.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime Premium$59.99

Questions

Is Timer free?
Timer is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Flip Focus free?
Flip Focus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Timer or Flip Focus have ads?
Neither Timer nor Flip Focus shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Timer or Flip Focus?
Timer ships an update every 3 months, and Flip Focus every 2 weeks. Most recently, Timer was updated on November 13, 2026 and Flip Focus on November 10, 2026.

Other comparisons