Blue Hour vs Note Taking App
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side β with what reviewers say about each.
Blue Hour
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Blue Hour turns time into light: a sun sinks toward the horizon as your timer runs, so you can feel how much is left without reading a number. Built kindly for ADHD and time-blindness, calm enough for classrooms and kids. No account, no ads, no streaks. Free forever, with a tip jar in Settings. RAISE THE SUN Drag the sun up to set your time, one minute to three hours, with soft detents you can feel. Prefer numbers? Tap the readout for a keypad. Three preset chips keep your rituals one tap away. THE SETTLING DUSK As the last light falls, the sky deepens and the screen dims a few gentle stops. At zero: two slow breaths of glow, a soft haptic, and an optional two-note chime. No alarm slam. Ever. THE LIGHT FOLLOWS YOU A Live Activity keeps the sinking sun on your Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. An optional nudge can tell you when time is up, even if you have looked away. Off by default. CYCLES, GENTLY Pomodoro in Blue Hour's language: work while the sun sets, then the break is a sunrise. The sky returns to morning, and the next round starts when you do. Rounds are counted in little suns, never quotas. START FROM ANYWHERE A Home Screen widget starts your usual timer in one tap. Siri and Shortcuts can start, pause, and resume without opening the app. FOR CLASSROOMS One tap opens the big display: a wall-sized countdown calm enough for a whole room, with a classroom preset set from one to twenty minutes. A QUIET LINE EACH DAWN Every day the idle sky carries one line from 412 public-domain quotations. Seneca, Thoreau, Lao Tzu, old proverbs. One per day. No feed, no push, no hustle. CALM BY CONSTRUCTION β’ Optional halfway and final-minute cues β’ Keeps the screen awake while the light falls, if you want β’ Wall-clock accurate: background it, come back, the light agrees β’ VoiceOver, Reduced Motion, and Dynamic Type are first-class FREE FOREVER Every feature, free. No premium tier, no subscription. If Blue Hour earns a place on your Home Screen, there is a tip jar in Settings. It unlocks nothing. PRIVATE BY ARCHITECTURE No account. No analytics. No tracking. Blue Hour makes zero network calls, and its App Store privacy label is "Data Not Collected," the rare kind that means exactly what it says. The light keeps track for you.
Note Taking App
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Turn every thought into a page worth keeping. Digital Notes is a private, beautifully designed notebook for handwriting, typing, planning, studying, and annotating documents. Write naturally with Apple Pencil or your finger, or add typed text that flows across multiple pages. CREATE YOUR WAY β’ Draw with pen, pencil, marker, eraser, and lasso β’ Choose ruled, dotted, grid, or plain paper β’ Customize notebook covers, folders, tags, and favorites β’ Turn typed text into handwritten-style pages WORK WITH DOCUMENTS β’ Import PDFs and annotate every page β’ Scan documents or add photos β’ Export notebooks as PDFs or pages as images β’ Extract searchable text using on-device recognition KEEP IDEAS ORGANIZED β’ Search titles, text, tags, and transcripts β’ Archive, duplicate, restore, and manage notebooks β’ Turn your notes into study cards β’ Attach audio recordings to notebooks β’ Fold meaningful pages into your keepsake jar PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your notebooks, drawings, scans, and recordings stay on your device. Digital Notes requires no account and includes local backup and restore tools for keeping an additional copy. Whether youβre capturing a quick idea, taking lecture notes, planning your week, journaling, or annotating a PDF, Digital Notes gives every thought a calm place to grow. Privacy Policy: https://digitalhole.github.io/DHPrivacy.html Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Note Taking App at none against Blue Hour's 3. Note Taking App also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Blue Hour's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Blue Hour sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Note Taking App asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Blue Hour | Note Taking App |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | β | Every 2 days |
| Ads | No β better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No β better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.0 β better |
| Further details β not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Moses Smith | Arima Jain |
In-app purchases
Blue Hour
- Coffee$1.99
- Lunch$4.99
- Legend$9.99
Note Taking App
No in-app purchases









