I've tried every Pomodoro app out there. Seriously. Forest, Focus Keeper, Be Focused, random ones with 4.8 stars and 12 reviews. They all did the same thing — a timer that counts down from 25 minutes. Some of them did it with trees. Some with pixel art. Some with way too many settings.
None of them felt right.
So I built my own. It's called Foku, and it's now live on the App Store.
The Problem With Most Focus Apps
Most Pomodoro apps fall into two categories: either they're too simple (literally just a countdown timer with no context), or they're packed with features you'll never touch. Gamification, social leaderboards, ambient sounds, meditation modes — it's like they forgot the whole point is to help you focus.
I wanted something in between. A timer that looks clean, works fast, and actually shows me whether I'm being consistent over time. That's it. Nothing fancy.
What Foku Does
Foku is a focus timer with just enough features to be useful.
Here's the core of it:
- Customizable Pomodoro sessions — 45-minute default because 25 never felt like enough for deep coding sessions. You can change it to whatever works for you.
- Live Activity and Dynamic Island — start a session and it shows up on your lock screen. No need to open the app to check how much time is left.
- Home screen widget — see your daily focus time, completed sessions, and current streak without opening anything.
- Analytics — daily, weekly, monthly charts. I wanted to see patterns in when I'm most productive, not just count tomatoes.
- Activity grid — think GitHub's contribution graph but for focus sessions. Five weeks of visual consistency tracking.
- Multiple color themes — because staring at the same screen for hours means it should at least look good.
Everything runs locally on your device. No accounts, no cloud sync, no data collection. Your focus data stays on your phone.
Why I Didn't Just Use an Existing App
Two reasons.
First, I wanted to learn. Building a native iOS app with Live Activities, widgets, and Dynamic Island support taught me things I couldn't have picked up from tutorials alone. There's a difference between reading about WidgetKit and actually debugging why your widget won't refresh.
Second, I had opinions about how it should work. I don't want a 25-minute default — I want 45. I don't want achievement badges — I want a streak counter. I don't want ambient rain sounds — I want silence and a clean screen. Every existing app came with someone else's opinions baked in.
Building your own means every design choice is intentional. That matters more than it sounds.
The Tech Behind It
Foku runs on SwiftUI. The timer uses background tasks and local notifications to work even when the app isn't in the foreground. Live Activities use ActivityKit, and the widgets are built with WidgetKit.
The data layer is entirely local — no backend, no API calls. Core Data handles session storage, and the analytics are computed on-device.
I kept the architecture simple on purpose. A focus timer doesn't need a microservices backend. It needs to start fast, count accurately, and not drain your battery.
What Building a "Simple" App Actually Takes
Here's what nobody tells you about shipping a "simple" app: it's not simple.
The timer itself took a day. Everything around it took weeks. App Store screenshots, privacy policies, subscription setup, handling edge cases like "what happens when the user kills the app mid-session," testing on different devices, making the widget actually look good at every size.
The 80/20 rule is real. The last 20% of polish takes 80% of the time. But that polish is what separates an app you open once from one you actually keep.
It's Free (Mostly)
The basic timer is completely free. No ads, no time limits, no "watch a video to unlock your third session."
Foku Pro unlocks full analytics with charts and custom color themes. That's $2.99/month or $19.99/year. I priced it low because I know what it's like to be a student or a developer trying to stay focused without spending a fortune on productivity tools.
What's Next
I'm actively working on Foku. There's a lot I want to add — better analytics, session categories, maybe Shortcuts integration. But I'm being deliberate about it. Every feature has to earn its place.
If you want to try it, here's the link: Foku on the App Store.
It works on iPhone, iPad, Mac (Apple Silicon), and even Vision Pro. Give it a shot and let me know what you think.
I built this for myself. Turns out that's the best way to build something others actually want to use too.
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