Whittle: Timers and To-Do

Nextech Systems

Contains adsIn-app purchases

About this app

Something is always underway, and something always needs doing. The washing, the oven, the parking, ringing the dentist, the twenty-five minutes you promised yourself. Whittle keeps both where you can see them, and both get smaller as you go.

WHAT IS UNDERWAY, AT A GLANCE
Start a timer and it appears as a live update on your lock screen and in the status bar. No unlocking, no hunting for the app, no doing sums. Every timer also shows the clock time it finishes at, so you never have to add the minutes to now.

THE BAR EMPTIES, IT DOES NOT FILL
A bar that fills up tells you how much work is done. A bar that empties tells you how much time is left, which is the only question a timer is asked. Everything here drains.

AND THE THINGS THAT NEED YOU
The other half is a list of things you have to do yourself. A title, and a time if you want reminding. The reminder carries Done, so you tick it off from the lock screen instead of unlocking, opening, finding and tapping. Later is there too, for when not now is the honest answer.

IT COUNTS WHAT YOU DID, NOT WHAT YOU MISSED
Ticking something off is acknowledged the moment you do it. There is no streak to break, no target to fall short of and no score to protect. The day starts at nothing and yesterday is never mentioned.

IF YOU HAVE ADHD, OR SOMETHING LIKE IT
This is not a treatment and it diagnoses nothing. It is shaped around three things that get named a lot. Time blindness: every timer shows the clock time it ends at and sits on your lock screen, so there is no adding minutes to now and no remembering to open an app. Task paralysis: a quick one is a single tap, and Later is a real answer instead of a failure. And the wall of overdue items that made you delete the last app you tried: there is no overdue here, no streak, and yesterday is never mentioned. Executive function is the thing this tries to spend less of, not test.

THE FINISH TELLS YOU WHAT TO DO NEXT
Give a timer a next step in your own words and the finish leads with it: move it to the dryer, take it out, off the heat. Name a timer to follow on and the alert offers it as one tap.

STAGES, FOR THINGS THAT HAVE THEM
A wash is not one block of time, it is a wash, a rinse and a spin. Give a timer named stages and the bar is divided to match, the current stage is named, and you get a nudge when it changes. Repeat the whole sequence for rounds, circuits or a pomodoro.

IT KEEPS GOING WHEN YOU DO NOT
Timers run with the app closed and survive a restart. Pause and pick up where you left off. Mark a stage to wait for you, for the step that needs you to have chopped something first. When a timer passes zero it keeps counting up, because the thing is still in the oven.

THE ALERT DOES NOT GO STALE
The same sound at the same time stops being heard. Whittle varies the finish alert from run to run, so the one thing you need to notice keeps being noticeable.

FAST TO USE
One tap for a quick one, two swipes for everything else: right to start or pause, left to delete, undo if you did not mean it. Pause, add five minutes or stop straight from the notification.

IT STAYS YOURS
No account. No sign-in. No subscription. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, there is no sync and no profile, and the app works with the network off. It shows one advert at the bottom of the list, and that is the only thing here that talks to the internet. One purchase removes it for good, and after that the ads code is never even started.

ON THE LOCK SCREEN
The promoted lock-screen timer needs Android 17. On earlier versions everything else works exactly the same and the timer appears as an ordinary progress notification in the shade.