Track the time since you last did something awesome. You are what you repeatedly do, so it is good to make sure you are not going too long between awesome things.
Each act gets a date, an optional photo, an optional note, an optional location, and an optional star. The home screen shows the day count since your most recent act so dry spells become visible. A widget shows the same counter on the home screen. Reminder notifications nudge you when you go quiet.
A long history
Awesome Timer is the longest-running thing on this site. It started in 2014 and has been rebuilt three times. The current version is a 2026 modernization on Tuist, SwiftData, and Swift 6.
2014: a hardware project
The first Awesome Timer was not an app. It was a binary-counter PCB designed to sit on a desk and tick over each day with no awesome act recorded. A button on the case reset the counter back to zero. The visible counter was the entire product idea.
The hardware never shipped, but the idea did.
2014: Startup Weekend
Later in 2014, the concept got pitched at Startup Weekend. The pitch package (business model canvas, validation board, sketch, judging form) is preserved in the repo. It did not win, but the validation work confirmed the core hook: people will install something that quantifies their personal dry spells, even if (or because) the count is uncomfortable.
2015: first iOS release
The first shipping version was an iOS app with a UIKit interface and a clean illustrated icon set by Loren Klein. The v1.1.1 release is where Loren’s design language really lands: a hand-illustrated geode for the splash and a gear-style icon for the app.
2016 and 2018: incremental updates
Lightweight UI iterations as iOS evolved. The screenshot below is the 2016 build. Same product, gradually more iOS-native.
2022: SwiftUI rewrite
The first full rewrite. UIKit out, SwiftUI in. Core Data persistence, a then-modern photo picker, in-app reminders. Three rounds of code review with detailed Keynote write-ups shaped the architecture. The 2022 build aged well enough that it was the basis for everything afterward.
2026: modernization
The current build. Same core idea, new everything underneath:
- Tuist 4 project generation — no committed
.xcodeproj, regenerate with one command - Swift 6 with strict concurrency
- SwiftData persistence in an App Group container so the widget reads the same store
- Swift Charts for the statistics page
- WidgetKit home-screen widget with the days-since-awesome counter
- fastlane for TestFlight uploads and screenshot capture
- iOS 18+ minimum target, debug and release builds with separate bundle IDs and a debug app icon
The repo is private, but the docs directory has the lineage: original sketch, Startup Weekend pitch, App Store screenshot history, code reviews, design exploration, sample content from the original launch.
Roles and credits
Role: Developer, Product Manager Design: Loren Klein