My thoughts on Timely

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

Maybe a lot of you have already heard about Timely, which is a relatively new alarm clock app that got a lot of buzz. I bought it a few weeks back and if you're looking for a nice alarm app, this might do.

Regarding the app itself:

• Pulling down the notification bar allows you to quickly dismiss the app. So much for having to do the challenge. As much as Jellybean's expanded notifications are nice, this is one case where an option to disable expanded notifications for this app would be nice.
• Custom alarm tones would be nice, but yes I like their alarms for the most part. The danger is that while this app tends to wake me up nicer, I can't choose my super annoying ringtone that my GF wants to kill me over. I usually get so scared she'll throw my phone against the wall that I jump right out of bed in the morning. Now instead, I let my phone snooze forever and she's ok with the more calm ringtone that she lets her Timely alarm ring FOREVER.
• Lifting the phone and having the volume lower is nice, but once again, this should be a setting and not mandatory.
• It seems to put an alarm icon in the status bar as if I had a standard android alarm setup. That's cool... continuity and all. However, the alarm won't show up on my cLock widget on my lockscreen, so I won't know my next alarm. I'm hoping it could tie into that, but I suppose that would probably require root. I have yet to try the Dashclock extension, so perhaps that's the proper way to see my next alarm.
• Could it be possible that Timely gets killed and my alarm doesn't fire up and I get fired from my job? Probably not a big issue on modern 2GB RAM phones, but what about other phones? I've always stuck to the stock Android app for this reason. Even when I had an iPad alarm, I always left the alarm app in the foreground. Having it in the background and at the mercy of the OS memory management system is a risk.
• The challenges are a joke. The shape one is probably the hardest because it requires 3 correct motions. The math problem is a joke because you can just mash buttons and with 1/4 chance of answering it, you're guaranteed to get it pretty quickly. The shape tracing is probably relatively easy when you're groggy too. Alarm Clock Extreme which looks like ass and reminds me of the dark ages of Gingerbread on the other hand forces you to solve the math problem(s) before snooze, dismiss, etc, and its highly configurable.
• Overall I like it, but I think it was a bit hyped up.

Miscellaneous:

• Lots of hype behind this app. Not sure what they did, but every Android news outlet was covering this app simultaneously. All were praising the same thing. It's almost like when all the blog sites review the iPhone at once. None of them are unique, and none of them present anything new. The comments are all very shallow, and not insightful at all. In the case of phones I usually rely on Anandtech to set itself apart from standard reviews. In the case of Timely, everyone was just focused on how cool the UI was. I felt like no one really investigated the app and provided constructive criticism. So I guess here I am.
• Hoping the app developers are open to suggestions. I see no uservoice or any outlet on their website for us to voice and discuss concerns/issues. For as much hype as it got, it's not a perfect app, and every app needs continuous improvement.
• And more about the hype, I felt like I had a buttload of questions like how the app stays in memory so the alarm does indeed go off, but it seems the only thing I can find is articles talking about how this is the most beautiful app ever.

Ok that is all.

 

[Crono]

Alarm Clock Extreme is what I use now. I like it because of all the options, and they even added a launch Pandora function.
Timely is prettier, though, heard about it on All About Android.
Good review, I'll give it a download.

...which is a relatively new alarm clock app that got a lot of buzz.

I see what you did there.

 

[Red Storm]

Setting a new alarm is really slick, but unfortunately on my HTC One I can't customize which alarm app shows up when I tap the clock on my home screen so I'm sticking with the stock alarm app.

 

[foghorn67]

For now, I am sticking Puzzle Alarm. Better challenges.
Not sure about Timely, but I can trigger apps after the first challenge is met in Puzzle Alarm. I have it kick on Pandora, and either CCR, The Doors or The Rolling Stones wake me up.
-Edit-I use Timely on the weekend, just to keep an eye on updates and what not.

 

[zaydq]

Setting a new alarm is really slick, but unfortunately on my HTC One I can't customize which alarm app shows up when I tap the clock on my home screen so I'm sticking with the stock alarm app.

I'm running my HTC one on ViperOne ROM from xda and it allows you yo change where the clock/weather widget leads to in terms of clock and weather apps. I'm guessing you're not rooted but if you ever plan on doing it down the road then that's an option.

 

[Red Storm]

I'm running my HTC one on ViperOne ROM from xda and it allows you yo change where the clock/weather widget leads to in terms of clock and weather apps. I'm guessing you're not rooted but if you ever plan on doing it down the road then that's an option.

Yeah I'm sure it will work with a custom ROM but I'm gonna be selling this thing in a few weeks so I don't feel like changing things.

 

[Suspicious-Teach8788]

I guess my main point is that there's always some nifty app out there, but in the end it's pretty simple and has a limited featureset. There isn't any room for customization as it's more of a use their default settings or else. The same applies to Swiftkey. It's a neat feature, but you get close to zero choices once you're in the app. A walled garden so to speak

 

[sweenish]

I do wish the challenges could be stronger, but I am overall pleased with app.

I was using Caynax before, also a very good alarm app, but I never knew when my next alarm was, period, because it put a permanent notification in the shade and I hate those so I got rid of the notification. I suppose that's also how they made sure it was never killed.

If Timely is mimicking the stock clock method of placing an alarm, I'm pretty sure it will also not be killed on accident.

On their support page: http://www.bitspin.ch/support there is a place to vote on feature requests featured right at the top.