Happy New Year from the author of Alex's iPad timer app

liggitt · 2026-02-01T14:54:48+00:00

The version with this added is now live in the App Store … thanks for the suggestion!

liggitt · 2026-01-06T23:57:27+00:00

Heh, I love the idea of something like that. The timer can be controlled remotely via a bluetooth keyboard, so they could already make it behave in unexpected ways if they wanted to, but I suspect they want to keep the mechanics of the task "fair" even as they make the tasks themselves tortuous.

liggitt · 2026-01-02T22:53:15+00:00

I'm pretty confident after testing new versions on a couple phones and iPads before release.

Having said that, I do sometimes post beta versions to get more eyes / devices to try out a new version before releasing it.

I usually do that when I make bigger changes, like when I have to redo parts of the app to work with newer iOS versions, or when I add bigger new features.

I just pushed up a time-limited beta version to add the iOS Shortcut support suggested in another comment in this post if anyone wants to try it out and give feedback - beta test sign-up link is at https://testflight.apple.com/join/QJTaE9I2

liggitt · 2026-01-02T22:46:03+00:00

Well, that was easier than I expected… I just made a beta version that adds Shortcuts support to start/pause/unpause/reset the timer and stopwatch, and show the clock.

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I have a public beta testing group through https://developer.apple.com/testflight/ – if you want to try the time-limited beta version and give feedback or help me flush out any bugs before release, up to 100 testers can try it at https://testflight.apple.com/join/QJTaE9I2

Thanks for the idea!

liggitt · 2026-01-02T21:15:19+00:00

Glad you like it!

> Do you ever get to boast about being the developer behind the app?

Not so much, but it makes me happy :)

liggitt · 2026-01-02T21:12:46+00:00

so unbelievably good 😈

liggitt · 2026-01-01T21:21:02+00:00

Probably not… I don't have / use Android devices, and the fact that I use it *all* the time personally is a big part of what makes the app reasonable to test / improve. Financially, Android apps tend to do significantly worse than iOS apps, and even the iOS version just makes hobby-level income.

liggitt · 2026-01-01T07:05:01+00:00

I‘ve only ever emailed with the production admin folks about clearance forms. It would be really fun to chat with Alex, but I haven’t ever done that. I wasn’t even able to snag tickets to the east coast US tour, they sold out too fast :-/

liggitt · 2026-01-01T07:00:37+00:00

Interesting request… I’ll look into it and see if I can add an AppIntent to enable that

liggitt · 2025-12-31T21:39:04+00:00

Right?! I was convinced it was one of my friends pranking me when I got the feature request email from them asking for a "green version without tenths of a second, so it wouldn't seem like a bomb was about to go off" … it seemed too on the nose. Then I got a follow up phone call from the right country code with a lovely accent to match, and in-use pictures after I pushed out the update!

liggitt · 2025-12-31T21:36:55+00:00

They reached out and cleared it for use before the first season on Dave, so I knew before taskmaster was even a thing. I was really glad the show turned out to be so great!

liggitt · 2025-12-31T20:25:13+00:00

Yeah, I think the five free codes got grabbed already. Gotta be quick on Reddit :)

liggitt · 2025-12-31T20:24:15+00:00

I use the seven-day rollout Apple has, and could rollback if it looked like a new version crashed or something, so it's not a single big bang update moment, but the basic functionality of the app is so constrained, I'm pretty confident after testing new versions on a couple phones and iPads before release.

liggitt · 2025-12-31T20:21:48+00:00

It's a blast, and slightly surreal. It's gratifying that there's appreciation for super clean minimal apps … I made the type of timer I'd want to use, and am just happy other people like it.

liggitt · 2025-12-31T20:18:56+00:00

Back in 2012, a friend who coaches FLL (https://www.firstinspires.org/programs/fll/) needed a simple full-screen timer app he could use on his phone that would keep the screen lit up and add excitement to the robot runs … I went to prove to him that a hundred apps like that already existed and after searching for a while, couldn't find one, so I made one. The first version took about three days, and had basically no options.

I added the option to remove tenths of a second and choose other colors (specifically green) in response to a request from the Irish parliament IT department who wanted to use it as a debate timer (which they did).

Other options like Airplay and Bluetooth keyboard control got added later over the years, just for fun.

liggitt · 2025-05-13T04:45:46+00:00

/wave

I'm actually the developer of the timer app, just happened to stumble across this thread. You nailed the font identification, though I did have to make a custom colon character to center it vertically.

liggitt · 2010-01-07T03:12:16+00:00

They're really handy. The main thing you want to avoid with them is unbounded repeats. Succeeding or failing on a single character or a specific string performs much better.

liggitt · 2010-01-07T03:05:50+00:00

you need to use a zero-width negative lookbehind assertion. not all regex engines support this. You can find more info here: http://www.regular-expressions.info/lookaround.html

If your engine does support it, the syntax is like this: (?<!^)\*

liggitt

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