Comparison

Tempo vs Jottle

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

Head to head
About

Tempo

Features
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Tempo — Smart Task Planner & Event Countdown Tempo is a sleek, fast, and completely private daily planner designed for those who want absolute control over their schedules, tasks, and important life events. No clutter, no distractions — just pure focus on your daily actions and personal productivity. Organize your day, track your consistency with a visual activity map, and run customizable countdowns to your most significant dates with gorgeous designer card styles. TEMPO KEY FEATURES: 1. Focus on Today & Daily Planner Quickly log tasks and organize your days ahead. The "Focus on Today" dashboard keeps your current tasks front and center, eliminating visual overwhelm. Schedule or postpone items easily with our interactive calendar view. 2. Visual Event Countdowns & Dynamic Units Save key dates (deadlines, travels, anniversaries, special occasions). Choose your counter units: track exactly how many days, hours, or minutes are left before or have elapsed since your events. Personalize each event using designer card skins (Polaroid, Concert Ticket, Neo-Brutalist Cartoon, Retro Vinyl, or Premium Frosted Glass). 3. Activity & Streak Heatmap A beautiful, interactive grid showing your daily completion history. Track your consistency visually, similar to a developer's contribution map. Build daily streaks and monitor your momentum over time. 4. Group Collaboration & Assignments Create shared groups with teammates, family, or friends. Delegate tasks directly to members in real-time. Receive instant notifications when a task is assigned to you. 5. Custom Aesthetic Themes Personalize your workspace with beautiful themes: Royal Purple, Midnight Blue, Green Salad, and more. Seamless dark mode support for high comfort day and night. 6. Offline-First & Absolute Privacy Tempo stores your schedules locally on your device using Apple's CoreData framework. Fast, native performance with secure synchronization. Download Tempo today and find your perfect daily rhythm! Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Jottle

Features
Read full description

Jottle is for the thought you need to get down before it's gone. Open it and there's a blank line, waiting. Type the thought, tap Add Note, and get on with your day. There's nothing to set up and nothing to file. A note is a piece of plain text with a date on it. The first line becomes the title. That's the whole model, and it's why capture takes a second instead of a minute. EACH DEVICE GETS ITS OWN SHAPE • iPhone: the list and the editor, and nothing between you and the blank line • iPad: your notes on the left and a full page for writing on the right • Apple Watch: a real app, not a mirror. Dictate or scribble from your wrist. It syncs straight from iCloud, so it works with your phone out of range • Mac: Jottle is there too, as a notepad that drops in over whatever you're doing with one keystroke Notes sync through your own iCloud account. There's no Jottle account, no sign-in, and no server of ours in the middle. WIDGETS AND COMPLICATIONS Pin the notes that matter and they show up in the Pinned Notes widget, small, medium or large, on the Home Screen, the Lock Screen or in Notification Center. On the watch, put New Note on your face to dictate with one tap, or Recent Notes to read your latest at a glance. LOCKED NOTES, ACTUALLY LOCKED Lock any note and its body is encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a passphrase only you know, derived with PBKDF2-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations. Only the ciphertext is stored and only the ciphertext syncs, so a locked note is unreadable everywhere except on a device where you've entered the passphrase. Face ID or Touch ID unlocks it after the first time, and an open locked note is hidden from the app switcher. There's no recovery and no backdoor. Forget the passphrase and the note is gone for good. That's not an oversight. It's the feature. PLAIN TEXT, NOT A TRAP Export one note or all of them as ordinary Markdown files, with the dates kept in the front matter. Import a folder of them back. They open in any editor and are already covered by whatever backup you run. You are never locked in. THE REST OF IT Pin a note to keep it at the top. Archive one to get it out of the way without deleting it. Search across everything, or find within the note you're editing. MAKE IT YOURS Eight accent colors, light or dark, on a Paper or Bright background, and a text size your eyes agree with. Your watch keeps a color of its own. FREE Jottle on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch is free, with every feature. The Mac app is a separate choice: a free 14-day trial, then a one-time purchase. WHAT IT DOESN'T DO No account. No subscription. No analytics, no advertising, no crash reporting, no third-party SDKs of any kind. Jottle makes no network requests of its own. The only thing it talks to is your iCloud, at your instruction. Nothing about you or your notes is collected, because there is nothing in it to collect them with. Requires iOS or iPadOS 26. The Apple Watch app requires watchOS 26. Syncing needs an Apple Account signed in with iCloud Drive on. Without one, Jottle runs perfectly well on a single device and tells you plainly that it isn't syncing.

Screenshots

Tempo4 screens
Jottle4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Jottle at weekly against Tempo's every 3 weeks. Jottle also leads on device support (4 vs 1). Tempo's advantage is iOS requirement (18.6 vs 26.0). On price, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Tempo sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month and Jottle sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Tempo ships an update every 3 weeks, Jottle weekly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 5 level
Tempo versus Jottle: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTempoJottle
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS18.6 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size57 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperVLADYSLAV BEHIMMike Shear

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Tempo

Subscriptions1
  • Tempo Premium$0.991 Month
2 purchases

Jottle

One-time2
  • 14-Day TrialFree
  • Jottle for Mac$9.99

Questions

Is Tempo free?
Tempo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Jottle free?
Jottle is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Tempo or Jottle have ads?
Neither Tempo nor Jottle shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Tempo or Jottle?
Tempo ships an update every 3 weeks, and Jottle weekly. Most recently, Tempo was updated on October 31, 2026 and Jottle on October 31, 2026.

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