Comparison

Plain and Simple Thoughts vs Tomato Daily

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

Head to head
About

Plain and Simple Thoughts

Save articles, recipes, receipts, and important documents from any app. Automatically categorizes saved items and displays them as they were originally saved. Offers a clean reading experience and smart organization for your digital life.

Highlights
  • Save links and text from any app
  • Automatic categorization of saved items
  • Preserves original page appearance
  • Extracts recipe ingredients and methods
  • Organizes receipts and warranties
  • Stores important papers like IDs
  • Offline indexing for Home Screen search
Features
Read full description

Share a link. It is waiting when you want it. For anyone who keeps meaning to read something later and has run out of places to put it — a pile of open tabs, a message sent to themselves, a bookmark folder nobody opens. It has since grown three more shelves for the other things that end up in a drawer: recipes, receipts and warranties, and papers like a passport or a licence. Each stands on its own, and the ones you do not need can be ignored. HOW IT WORKS In any app — Safari, a message, a social app — tap Share and choose it. That is the whole of using it. The sheet saves and closes by itself. Start typing before it does and you can leave yourself a note about why you kept it, which three weeks later is the harder thing to reconstruct. It works whether the other app hands over a web address or a lump of text with an address buried inside it. If you would rather not use the share button at all, there is a + on your library: paste an address straight in. IT SORTS ITSELF Saved things are grouped by what they are — an article, a video, code, a reference page, a post — and by where they came from. A long list stays findable without you filing anything. What you have not read yet is what you see first. They turn up in your Home Screen search as well, from an index built on your own device and offered to nobody. IT LOOKS LIKE THE THING YOU SAVED It fetches the page's title and its preview picture, so a saved link reads as the thing it is rather than as a row of characters. That request goes to the site you saved and to nowhere else. It is the one thing this app sends anywhere, and it is described in full on the privacy page rather than left to a label. It strips the tracking parameters off a link before storing it, so what you keep is the page rather than a record of where you found it. READING Tap to read it inside the app, in Safari's reader. Archive it when you are done, or delete it. You can pick several at once to archive them or mark them read — there is deliberately no way to delete a pile, because archiving can be undone and deleting cannot. RECIPES Share a recipe page and the ingredients and the method are pulled out as you save it. That is reading rather than guesswork — recipe sites publish their recipes as structured data — so nothing is invented and no step is dropped. You can also paste an address, write one out yourself, or photograph a cookbook page and let the phone read the words off it. Amounts double, halve and convert, and a cooking mode shows one step at a time with the screen kept on. RECEIPTS AND WARRANTIES What it cost, where it came from, and when the cover runs out — listed by whatever expires soonest. Photograph the receipt and your iPhone reads the shop, the total and the serial number off the picture and offers them to you before anything is saved. Search finds them by the serial number too. PAPERS A passport, a licence, an insurance card: the number, the expiry, and a picture of it. The tab can be put behind Face ID or your passcode, and that is off until you turn it on. Pin one and its number can sit on your Home Screen or Lock Screen. A warranty or a paper can carry a reminder before the date, scheduled and delivered by your own iPhone. There is none unless you ask for one. YOUR OWN iCLOUD Your library syncs through your own iCloud account, so a link saved on the phone is on the iPad — where it lays itself out as an iPad app rather than a stretched phone screen. It sits in your private database, under your Apple Account. There is no server of mine — I have no access to it and no way to read it. WHAT IT DOES NOT DO • No adverts, no purchases, no subscription • No account to create and nothing to sign into • No analytics, no tracking, no reading history shared with anyone One thing to know before you start: iOS makes you switch a share button on by hand the first time. Tap Share, scroll the icons to the right, tap More, and switch it on. You only do it once, and the app explains it.

About

Tomato Daily

Features
Read full description

One page at a time. Tomato Daily is a Pomodoro timer for study and rest. A little art, a little ambient sound, and time for what matters to you. STAY IN YOUR FLOW Still reading when the timer ends? Keep going after the reminder. It won't switch to a break automatically. Extra time counts too. A PAUSE FEELS GOOD Put the book down. Take a breath. Choose a short or long break, or start another when you need it. Breaks keep counting and recording past the set time too. EVERY BIT COUNTS A few pages. A little practice. One task done. Organize sessions with tags and look back by day, week, month or year. See where your time went, and how it adds up. FORGOT TO SET THE TIMER? Add a missed session, edit the time, or leave a note about what you read or finished. FIND YOUR QUIET Pick an illustrated scene and an ambient sound. Or choose a minimal theme and turn the sound off. Make room for your own kind of quiet. A GLANCE, THEN BACK TO YOUR BOOK Check the timer on your Lock Screen or in the Dynamic Island on supported models. Home Screen widgets show today's focus. Enable notifications for reminders while your screen is locked or you're in another app. NEW PHONE, SAME PROGRESS With iCloud enabled and the same Apple Account, your focus and break records sync to your next iPhone. Unlock charts and more ambient sounds with a one-time purchase. No subscription.

Screenshots

Plain and Simple Thoughts4 screens
Tomato Daily4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Plain and Simple Thoughts at none against Tomato Daily's 1. Plain and Simple Thoughts also leads on iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, ads 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. Tomato Daily sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Plain and Simple Thoughts asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Plain and Simple Thoughts ships an update every 5 days, Tomato Daily every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
Plain and Simple Thoughts versus Tomato Daily: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPlain and Simple ThoughtsTomato Daily
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 daysEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB36 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperPlain and Simple Solutions LLCCHIH-SHAN LIU

In-app purchases

None

Plain and Simple Thoughts

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Tomato Daily

One-time1
  • Daily Plus$4.99

Questions

Is Plain and Simple Thoughts free?
Plain and Simple Thoughts is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Tomato Daily free?
Tomato Daily is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Plain and Simple Thoughts or Tomato Daily have ads?
Neither Plain and Simple Thoughts nor Tomato Daily shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Plain and Simple Thoughts or Tomato Daily?
Plain and Simple Thoughts ships an update every 5 days, and Tomato Daily every 4 days. Most recently, Plain and Simple Thoughts was updated on November 10, 2026 and Tomato Daily on November 6, 2026.

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