Comparison

Elements vs Hands

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

Head to head
About

Elements

Features
Read full description

Aesthetic widgets that match — because you designed them that way. Most widget apps hand you a pile of unrelated widgets. Elements gives you a design system: set the typeface, the accent, the background and the density once, and 32 kinds of widget wear it — on the Home Screen, the Lock Screen, StandBy, CarPlay, and on your Mac. 145 designed faces. 206 backgrounds, 118 of them photographs. 12 accent colours, or your own. 180 finished looks you can apply in one tap and then keep tweaking. WIDGETS THAT KNOW SOMETHING • Weather written as a sentence — "31° now, feels 35°. Haze till 6pm." • Your next event, your month at a glance, and how long until the next thing • A groceries list you tick off from the Home Screen • Steps, distance and sleep, read from Health • Sunrise, sunset, the moon's phase, and how much daylight you lost since yesterday • Prayer times, computed on device from five published methods • Currency at the day's published reference rate • Battery, storage, world clocks, countdowns, a verse, a word, your own feeds CUT OUT A SUBJECT AND STICK IT ON YOUR SCREEN Pick a photo and Elements lifts the subject out of it — no background, just the thing. Size it, turn it, nudge it, give it a paper edge. Keep a shelf of them and let the widget rotate through. MINI-APPS YOU FILL YOURSELF Habits you check off. Tallies you count. Subscriptions with renewal reminders. A focus timer. A fasting window. Readings your own Shortcuts write into. A canvas you compose from blocks. All of it stays on your phone. FED BY YOUR SHORTCUTS Four Shortcuts actions let your automations write straight into a widget: update a reading, check in a habit, adjust a counter, set a canvas block. State how often your shortcut runs and the widget will say "as of 9:41" when it misses — a stale number never poses as a fresh one. CORRECT, OR IT TELLS YOU WHY The most common complaint about widgets is that they go stale, blank, or wrong. Elements treats that as a feature to build, not a bug to apologise for. Every widget knows how fresh its data is and says so. Every failure is named — "no location fix", "offline", "not allowed" — instead of one shrug. There is a Widget Health screen that shows what actually reloaded today against the system's own budget. NOTHING HERE IS A SCORE No badges. No XP. No streak repairs to buy. No confetti, no leaderboards, no red marks for a day you missed — a missed day is an empty dot. The reward is that the number is right and the typography is good. THREE THEMES, LIGHT AND DARK Ink Bento is near-black panes and feather numerals. Dawn Glass is warm paper. Pop is flat saturated colour. Every design can pin its own theme and its own light/dark, so one widget can be dark while another follows your phone. PRIVACY Calendar, Reminders, Health and everything you type stay on your device. Health access is read-only and the widget extension never touches it. Weather sends your location — or the place you pin — to Apple to get a forecast, and a few widgets fetch public data like exchange rates or the headlines from feeds you add yourself. There are no accounts, no analytics and no tracking. Four finished widgets — clock, weather, next event, battery and storage — fully styleable, no ads, no watermarks. Elements Pro unlocks the rest of the catalog, saved designs, and the mini-apps. Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Hands

Design and customize your own analog clock widgets for your Home Screen. Choose from various hand and numeral styles, colors, and sizes. Share your creations with the community and explore designs made by others.

Highlights
  • Design custom analog clock widgets
  • Configure hand and numeral styles
  • Adjust size, weight, and colors
  • Use catalog clocks as starting points
  • Browse and share community designs
  • Send clocks to friends
Features
Read full description

The analog clock workshop. Design your own clock widget, then put it on your Home Screen. Configure the hand style, numeral style, numeral position, size, and weight, colors, second hand, and more. Start from scratch, or use one of the clocks in the Catalog as a starting point. Browse Community Clocks to see designs other people have made and shared, and share your own back: send a clock to a friend and they can add it straight to their own library. Terms of Use (Apple Standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Elements4 screens
Hands4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Hands at none against Elements's shown. On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and device support 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. Elements sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Hands sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Elements ships an update every 4 days, Hands every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 4, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Elements versus Hands: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterElementsHands
PriceFreeFree
Rating—2.7 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—3 — better
Update frequencyEvery 4 daysEvery 3 days — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS26.0 — better26.2
Further details — not scored
Size98 MB72 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTouseef Hassan NasirChristian James Sheehan Lowry

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Elements

Subscriptions2
  • Elements Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Elements Pro Yearly1 Month trial$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Elements Pro Lifetime$49.99
3 purchases

Hands

Subscriptions2
  • Hands Pro Monthly7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Hands Pro Yearly7 Days trial$11.991 Year
One-time1
  • Hands Pro Lifetime$24.99

Questions

Is Elements free?
Elements is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Hands free?
Hands is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Elements or Hands have ads?
Elements shows ads; Hands does not.
Which is updated more often, Elements or Hands?
Elements ships an update every 4 days, and Hands every 3 days. Most recently, Elements was updated on October 4, 2026 and Hands on October 14, 2026.

Other comparisons