ThoughtRecorder vs Focus Hour

there is no server we run. RECORD ANYWHERE • Tap the mic on any device to start capturing • Apple Watch: record directly from your wrist, syncs back automatically • Lock Screen widget for one-tap recording • Live Activity shows recording status while you work in other apps CATEGORIES THAT WORK LIKE YOU DO Sort your thinking however makes sense — Ideas, Meetings, To-do, Manuscript, or anything you invent. Categories sync across all your devices, so a category made on Watch appears on Mac. Filter your library in one tap. No folders to manage, no rigid hierarchy — just labels that follow your mind. SHARE PRIVATELY, WITH ONE PERSON Send a specific recording or note to a specific person. No public feed, no discovery, no "everyone with the link." The recipient sees exactly what you sent, opens it in their own Thought Recorder, and can reply with comments. You'll see when they've viewed it. Perfect for interviews handed to a producer, ideas passed to a co-writer, or a private voice note to a friend. TRANSCRIBE ON-DEVICE Enhanced transcription runs entirely on your device — no audio ever leaves it. Powered by state-of-the-art open models compiled to Apple Neural Engine. Prefer cloud accuracy? Bring your own OpenAI Whisper or AssemblyAI key — your audio goes directly to your account, billed to you, never through us. AssemblyAI adds automatic speaker labeling. ORGANIZE THE DETAIL • Flags in five colors for triage • Markers within long recordings • Notes alongside recordings — plain text with location, date, and title • Search across everything with Ask Archive using plain-language questions SYNC ACROSS YOUR DEVICES iCloud sync uses your Apple account. Everything syncs automatically — recordings, notes, categories, flags, transcripts, sharing state. BACKUP TO WHAT YOU ALREADY USE • iCloud Drive: automatic, organized by year and category • Google Drive (optional): connect your own account, files stored only in a folder Thought Recorder creates BUILT FOR PRIVACY • No third-party SDKs • No analytics • No tracking • Nothing leaves your device unless YOU turn on a cloud feature under YOUR own account Thought Recorder is made by a small independent studio in Trondheim, Norway.

Focus Hour is a task manager, a day planner and a focus timer in one app. No account. No sign-up. No email. No ads. Open it, plan tomorrow, and start. PLAN THE DAY, THEN DO IT Lists, folders and headings for structure. Tags, saved filters and search for everything else. Subtasks, checklists, markdown notes and photo attachments on any task. Due dates, defer dates, durations, recurrence, and reminders with buttons you can act on straight from the notification. TYPE IT, DON'T TAP IT Quick add reads what you write. "Draft the report friday 2pm #work !2" lands dated, tagged and flagged without touching a single picker. A PLANNER THAT KNOWS YOUR CALENDAR Your tasks and your existing calendar events on one timeline, so the plan reflects the time you actually have. Auto-plan drops the backlog into the gaps. Calendar events are read-only and never leave your device. FOCUS, PROPERLY A real Pomodoro cycle — focus, a short break, and a longer reset after a few rounds — with every duration configurable. Or a plain stopwatch. Synthesised ambient beds to work under: rain, waves, fire, and three kinds of noise. Start a session on a task and the time is logged against it. BUILD THE HABITS Daily, weekday or times-per-week habits, with count goals, streaks and notes. SEE IT WITHOUT OPENING THE APP Home Screen widgets for today's list — with checkboxes that work right there — and for the running timer. Lock Screen widgets for what's next and how long is left. An Apple Watch app to tick things off, log habits and run a focus session from your wrist. And a share sheet that sends a link, a screenshot or selected text from any app straight to your Inbox. MADE TO LOOK LIKE SOMETHING Three skins — Ink, Carbon and Terminal — with hard rules, a grotesk display face and monospaced figures. Not another rounded grey list. ALSO IN THE BOX An Eisenhower matrix, a weekly review, project templates, XP levels and badges, and focus statistics by day, list, task and hour. BUILT BY ONE PERSON I built Focus Hour for myself, in a year when AI finally made something like this achievable alone — then kept building whatever people asked for. No team, no investors, and no roadmap written by anyone but the people using it. And no subscription: your own to-do list shouldn't be rented back to you month after month. Your tasks, notes and photos stay on your iPhone, and your calendar is read-only and never leaves the device. No tracking of you across other companies' apps or websites, and nothing shared with data brokers. TELL ME WHAT TO BUILD See something in another to-do app that you wish this one had? Email mark@vibecode.review. I read every message and I build what people actually ask for — that is how most of this app got here. Install it and plan tomorrow tonight.