Comparison

Orbital Focus vs OpenDisplay

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

Head to head
About

Orbital Focus

This app transforms focus sessions into space missions, with longer focus times leading to higher orbits. It features customizable missions, a living 3D Earth visualization, and gamified progress tracking. Optional app blocking and ambient soundscapes enhance concentration.

Highlights
  • Themed focus sessions with space mission progression
  • Living 3D Earth visualization with real-time data
  • Gamified progress tracking with ranks and rewards
  • Optional app blocking for distraction-free work
  • Ambient focus music and soundscapes
  • Live Activities and Apple Watch companion app
Features
Read full description

Your attention is the most powerful engine you own. Orbital Focus turns every focus session into a rocket launch — pick a destination, strap in, and the only way to arrive is to stay on task. The longer you focus, the higher you fly. A 15-minute warm-up is a suborbital hop. 25 minutes is one clean orbit of Earth. A focused hour parks you in geostationary orbit, 35,786 km up. Push past 90 minutes and you leave Earth orbit entirely. Every minute is real thrust. HOW A MISSION WORKS • Pick a destination — a 15-minute Suborbital Hop, 25-minute Low Earth Orbit, a 45-minute rendezvous with Station Aurora, a full hour in High Earth Orbit, or a 90-minute Deep Space run to lunar distance. Each is a fixed block of focus. • Name your payload (the thing you're actually doing) and choose a crew role — Work, Study, Read, Create, Code, Write, Train, Plan, Chores, or Relax. • Feel the countdown. A cinematic haptic launch ritual — ignition rumble, Max-Q, stage separation — marks the real milestones of your session. • Fly a living 3D Earth. Watch your spacecraft climb its true trajectory over a hand-rendered planet with daylight, city lights, and every flight you've ever flown. • Coast phases = built-in breaks. Long missions split into burn segments with short coasts between them — pomodoro, in orbital mechanics. Fully configurable, or fly one unbroken burn. THE HANGAR Every focused minute earns Δv. Spend it across a fleet of real rockets — from the workhorse Falcon 9 to the mighty Falcon Heavy — and upgrade engines, tanks, and avionics. Launch from seven real-world pads: Cape Canaveral, Vandenberg, Baikonur, Kourou, Tanegashima, Wenchang, and Starbase. Premium also unlocks an exotic collection of legendary sci-fi capital ships, for pilots who want to fly something out of a movie. A LOYALTY PROGRAM FOR YOUR ATTENTION Climb six ranks, Cadet to Mission Commander, by logging real focus time. Ranks unlock new destinations and craft. Your lifetime distance is measured in light-seconds — and it only ever goes up. LAUNCH LOCKDOWN Optional app blocking powered by Apple's Screen Time. While a mission is in flight, your chosen distracting apps are shielded. Leave early and you don't crash — re-entries and pad scrubs still bank partial credit. Orbital Focus never punishes you for being human. THE CUPOLA Look out the window. Stream real satellite imagery of the world passing beneath your spacecraft — a live view from orbit, in flight. FOCUS MUSIC Download ambient flight-deck soundscapes on demand and cache them for offline sessions. Deep Space pilots can also pick a station skin — five orbital outposts to fly past. MISSION REPLAYS Scrub through recreated historic launches — Sputnik 1, Vostok 1, Crew Dragon Demo-2, the Space Shuttle and more — and watch them fly out on the same living globe. EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK Live Activities on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island. An Apple Watch companion that flies on your wrist. Home Screen and Control Center widgets. Share your mission to a TV or the big screen. STREAKS, ACHIEVEMENTS, LOGBOOK Daily launch streaks, 16 achievements, and a full flight logbook with charts of where your hours actually go. ORBITAL FOCUS PREMIUM (optional) The core app is free, forever. Premium adds the live Cupola view, Advanced Insights and your full Flight Log, exclusive craft and destinations, and alternate app icons. Subscribe monthly or yearly, or unlock it once for life. Your focus minutes always bank — free or Premium. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account. No ads in the app. We never sell your data. Every mission record lives on your device, and Screen Time data never leaves your phone. Built for students, makers, writers, engineers, and anyone with ADHD-adjacent attention who needs the session to feel like it matters. Wheels stop. Mission complete. Fly again tomorrow. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

OpenDisplay

Transform your iPhone or iPad into a genuine second display for your Mac. This open-source solution allows you to extend your screen space, keeping essential apps visible. Connect via USB for minimal latency or Wi-Fi for easy setup.

Highlights
  • Use iPhone/iPad as a second Mac display
  • Connect via USB or Wi-Fi
  • Retina-sharp rendering
  • Touch and scroll support
  • Portrait or landscape orientation
  • Private by design, no tracking
Features
Read full description

OpenDisplay turns your iPhone or iPad into a second display for your Mac. It's the open-source way to put your spare Apple device to work as a real extended monitor — drag windows onto it, keep chat, notes, or logs in view, and gain screen space anywhere you go. It's not a mirror: it's a genuine additional display your Mac treats like any other monitor. • Real extended display — arrange it in your Mac's Display settings and drag windows across • Connect over USB for the lowest latency, or over Wi-Fi with zero setup • Retina-sharp, pixel-for-pixel rendering • Touch and scroll — tap, drag, and two-finger scroll to control your Mac • Works in portrait or landscape • Private by design — a direct connection between your own devices, with no accounts, no servers, and no tracking IMPORTANT: OpenDisplay requires the companion OpenDisplay app for Mac, running on your computer on the same cable or Wi-Fi network. Get it at https://peetzweg.github.io/opendisplay — without it, this app has nothing to connect to. OpenDisplay is open source under the GPL-3.0 license. Read the code, report issues, or contribute at https://github.com/peetzweg/opendisplay

Screenshots

Orbital Focus4 screens
OpenDisplay1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: OpenDisplay at none against Orbital Focus's 3. OpenDisplay also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 89%) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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. Orbital Focus sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. OpenDisplay asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Orbital Focus against 4.9 for OpenDisplay. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 11 and 14 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 89% of Orbital Focus's written reviews are positive against 100% of OpenDisplay's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Orbital Focus ships an update every 2 weeks, OpenDisplay every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Orbital Focus versus OpenDisplay: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOrbital FocusOpenDisplay
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (11 ratings) — better4.9 (14 ratings)
Positive reviews88.9% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1114 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 8 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size301 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperRed Honey LLCPhilip Poloczek

Customer experience

Orbital Focus

All ratings11 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive88.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative11.1%

OpenDisplay

All ratings14 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews11 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Orbital Focus

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Yearly$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • LifetimeFree
None

OpenDisplay

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Orbital Focus free?
Orbital Focus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is OpenDisplay free?
OpenDisplay is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Orbital Focus or OpenDisplay?
Orbital Focus is rated higher. Orbital Focus averages 5.0 out of 5 from 11 ratings, while OpenDisplay averages 4.9 from 14 ratings.
Do Orbital Focus or OpenDisplay have ads?
Neither Orbital Focus nor OpenDisplay shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Orbital Focus or OpenDisplay?
Orbital Focus ships an update every 2 weeks, and OpenDisplay every 8 days. Most recently, Orbital Focus was updated on October 7, 2026 and OpenDisplay on October 14, 2026.

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