With only one timer available in my kitchen, I consistently rely on my iPhone’s timer to help get meals on the table or for when I’m on the other side of the apartment and can’t hear the tiny microwave beep. Although the native timer in the iDevice clock works swell, often I find myself needing to time seconds rather than minutes or just needing a couple more timers if there are a lot of pots on the stove. Ding! aims to solve that problem on iPhone and iPod Touch with its app of multiple timers.
Ding! is good-looking and easy to use. Tap the plus sign, and then hit one of the preset hotspots for common times such as 15 minutes, 1 hour or 12 hours, or turn the dial to your exact needed minute. Tap the center of the dial to toggle minutes and seconds. You can name your timer, which is handy for keeping track of dishes — wouldn’t want to pull the pasta out of the pot if you confuse it with your broccoli timer.
There doesn’t seem to be a limit of timers you can add (I created eight before I got bored), and once they end, you can restart with a tap. I also like that you can tap into a timer while it’s counting down, and edit it to add or subtract time. All timers can also be paused. To delete timers, you just swipe across, but I could see myself setting up common tasks with set times, such as laundry, and leaving it permanently in the app.
Ding!’s major downfall is that is offers no customization for the alert sound or length of notification. If you have Ding! running in the foreground, you’ll hear a single ding when your timer completes. If the app is running in the background (it’s nice that this is supported), you’ll hear the sound you use to receive text messages. In both instances, you must have your ringer on. This is a deviation from the native timer that sounds regardless of your ringer status, and something I know I’m going to forget to turn on when I use Ding!.
I’d recommend investing a dollar in Ding!, but only once it offers customization for its alerts. Save your money and muddle along with iDevice’s native timer until then.
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