Comparison

Timbre vs Barkeeping

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

Head to head
About

Timbre

Features
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We keep ten thousand photos and almost never keep a voice. A voice is the fastest trace of a person to disappear from memory, and the quickest to bring them back. timbre keeps the sound of the people and places you love. Press and hold, and it records a short spoken moment together with the room around it. The recording becomes a small living stone, colored by what it heard and sized by how long you listened, that settles into a timeline. Over months, the timeline becomes a warm field of colored stones: a map of a life in sound. Years later you can still hear exactly how someone said your name. WHAT IT DOES โ€ข Press and hold. A living form blooms with your voice while you record. โ€ข Words appear as you speak, transcribed on your phone, kept with the sound. โ€ข Stones take their color from the world: speech glows amber, rain pulls teal. โ€ข Tap a sentence in the transcript and playback jumps there. โ€ข Feel a recording through your fingertips. The heartbeat traces its shape, strong enough to know a moment without hearing it. โ€ข Gather stones by person and place: forty-one minutes of Mom. โ€ข On This Day brings a kept moment back to your home screen, quietly. Tap it to hear the sound again. WHAT IT DOESN'T No account. No feed. No streaks. No ads. Nothing leaves your phone: transcription and sound understanding happen on-device, recordings stay yours, and there is no server to send them to. There is no us. Free for your first 50 recordings. After that a single payment keeps it unlimited โ€” one payment, never a subscription. Everything you have already kept stays yours either way. BUILT FOR EVERYONE Every stone carries a silhouette as well as a color, so meaning never rests on color alone. VoiceOver speaks the capture as it grows, and Reduce Motion is respected throughout. Everything works in airplane mode, from the first press.

About

Barkeeping

Features
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Barkeeping helps your household keep track of feeding, bathroom trips, and accidents for your dogs โ€” and everyone in the family sees the same up-to-date picture. Shared with your family Invite family members to a shared view of your dogs' care, the same way you'd share a Reminders list. Everyone logs from their own iPhone, iPad, or Apple Watch, and sees who did what and when. Learns your dog's routine Barkeeping quietly learns each dog's typical schedule from what you log โ€” how long they usually go between trips outside, and how soon they tend to need out after a meal or a skipped opportunity. It starts with sensible estimates and gets more accurate the more you use it. Reminders that come to you Turn on reminders to get a notification, a Home Screen widget, and a Live Activity countdown when a dog is due for a trip outside โ€” so you don't have to open the app to know. See the patterns A history view charts trips outside versus accidents over time, so you can spot patterns and track house-training progress. Ask Siri Log a feeding or a bathroom trip, or ask when a dog is next due out, right from Siri and Shortcuts. Built for the whole family A glanceable status board is designed for an iPad mounted in a hallway or kitchen, showing every dog's status at a glance with one-tap logging.

Screenshots

Timbre4 screens
Barkeeping4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Timbre at Free against Barkeeping's $0.99. Barkeeping's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). On update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Timbre is free to download; Barkeeping costs $0.99 up front. Timbre sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Barkeeping asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences ยท 2 level
Timbre versus Barkeeping: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterTimbreBarkeeping
PriceFree โ€” better$0.99
Update frequencyFortnightlyFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch โ€” better
Requires iOS26.017.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size2 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperWilliam AlstonThomas Hardy

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Timbre

One-time1
  • Timbre Plus$4.99
None

Barkeeping

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Timbre free?
Timbre is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Barkeeping free?
Barkeeping costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Timbre or Barkeeping have ads?
Neither Timbre nor Barkeeping shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Timbre or Barkeeping?
Timbre ships an update fortnightly, and Barkeeping fortnightly. Most recently, Timbre was updated on October 29, 2026 and Barkeeping on October 14, 2026.

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