Countdown Timer Gadget 4+

I’ve been using this app for a couple of years now and really find it very useful. Leonardo da Vinci said that “simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” and that’s my thought on this app - it’s clean, elegant and easy to use without being bloated with useless features. I also really like the interface design - just the small timer taking only a minimal amount of screen real estate. I’ve never had any problems with the app so not sure what one of the other reviewers is on about. Highly recommended if you need to time tasks.

I must confess to feeling a bit uneasy about giving this little gem five stars out of five.

Why?

Because ethics generally limit my awarding of the "high five" exclusively to things that I can unequivocally recommend, with NO reservations WHATSOEVER …and this brilliant little app has been specifically tailored (in other words, deliberately "limited") to just ONE task: the repeated countdown of (an easily re-settable) "time remaining", culminating in an obvious "time has expired" alarm.

It does this (and only this) superbly, …and has now done for some (…ahem...) …time.

It's also truly ergonomically excellent in the following four respects:

1) The app's rapid launch (or instant quit) and the instant appearance of its "click to configure" icon in the OSx toolbar,

2) Its unique space-bar toggling of "Start", "Stop" and "Reset",

3) The way it permanently "sits over the top" of all other work being done,

4) Its innovative "space-saving drawer" that reveals (and conceals) a really easy to use, self-explanatory and elegant duration-changing "mechanism" and

4) Being truly intuitive to navigate.

It would be remiss of me, however, not to highlight a couple of things that I found it easy to misconstrue in terms of its "Play Sound" option, starting with the first two of its four "inbuilt sounds".

It turns out that both of these "ramp up" from silence, (with the second taking quite some time) so a rushed evaluation may initiate a jump to the conclusion that they're not working.

They are and they do.

The second relates to the "user-loading" of its "Custom Sound", which I'm fairly certain is an "issue" that stems from the wonderfully "stingy" or "miserly" way this app uses hardly any system resources.

The Countdown Timer Gadget will only accept small (or compressed, such as mp3) files for its "Custom Sound", as audiophile quality is clearly outside its brief...

…In the same way that its elegant graphics instantly convey the "idea" of time remaining at a glance, rather than facilitating intense statistical analysis from any detailed reading of split-second durations.

Speaking of this "brief", I thought that Sergey might possibly be able to "broaden" the appeal of this device by adding "Play Sound On Start" to the current "Play Sound", (which only sounds when time has expired) so I opened a "Ticket" to this effect via his "Countdown Timer Gadget Support".

I marked contrast to many other suppliers, HIS response was immediate.

To my mind, all of that DOES make this little app worthy of five stars, …with support to match.

I bought this so I could have a timer to time manage my work. It seems like if it worked properly, it would be great. However, although this app looks nice and shiny, the basic functionality is simply dysfunctional.

- None of the default alarm sounds work
- I can't select any alternatives alarm sounds from the custom setting menu.
- The 'launch application on timer end' will only launch the chosen application once you switch over to the timer as your main active application.

Seems like it hasn't been tested properly at all before being submitted to the app store, which is just slack.