The journey
Two people started iLoveClock for the fun of it — a side project that got a little out of hand. This is what happened next; scroll to wind it forward.
MachineGun and MrTopGun start iLoveClock for the fun of it — no roadmap, no plan, just a wish for a clock worth leaving on a screen. Day one ships twelve faces, sixteen background animations and a little ambient sound.
Time Lab arrives — small games that test how well you actually sense a passing second. Most of us are worse at it than we think.
Try Time LabA to-do list and a Pomodoro timer move in. The clock stops being a clock and starts being a desk.
Open the to-do listEnglish, Spanish, French and Hindi — every label, every tooltip, every error message.
A drawing spree adds twenty-five canvas-rendered designs. The nixie tubes finally got real glass, and the colour contrast finally passed.
See the galleryRepeat by weekday, three different wake-up challenges, and a full-screen ring that is genuinely hard to ignore at 6am.
Set an alarmThe stopwatch gains a classic analog face, a lap graph and session history. Pomodoro gains scroll-wheel drums you can flick.
Open the stopwatchOne button exports everything — alarms, reminders, settings, history — into a single file you own. It was never on a server anyway.
Nightstand mode, a second timezone, and a clock you can drag anywhere on any background. Per-design fonts, crisp at every zoom level.
A starfield warp, a campfire that actually flickers, lightning, snow with a snowman, falling leaves, and a cat asleep on the clock.
Reminders, to-do, alarms, stopwatch and Time Lab all adopt one look — paper, ink and rose — with a floating dock on the phone.
The whole app caches itself. Close the tab, lose the wifi, board the flight — it still keeps time.
HIIT, Tabata, EMOM, boxing rounds and AMRAP — a whole family of workout timers, each with its own bell.
Pick a workout timerSkins arrive. The to-do list becomes a corkboard of paper notes; reminders become a dry-wipe dayboard. Finished tasks go on a spike.
See the pinboardType “every Tuesday at 6” and the reminder simply understands — in English, Spanish and French. No dropdowns required.
Add a reminderThe pinboard stops being a skin and becomes the front door. Filters that actually narrow, notes that show every line they were given, and a wall clock and calendar you can keep or clear away.
See the pinboardA note is stored under its tidy name, but the sentence you typed is kept beside it — so opening one to fix a typo no longer hands you the leftovers. Older reminders were tidied the same way.
Write #money on a reminder and it becomes a filter of your own making. The list is only ever the words you actually use, so a tag you stop writing quietly disappears.
Add a reminderThe composer keeps a phrasebook. Open it from the line you were already typing and it lists what it can read — every other Tuesday, the 3rd, in two hours — with the limits stated rather than discovered.
Add a reminderA clock page can offer more than one face now, chosen by what the page is for: the analog page offers the analog faces, the night page the ones you can read in the dark. Colours are their own row, so picking a look no longer means picking blind.
See the galleryOn a 27-inch screen the app used to draw a phone in the middle of it. The pinboard, the dayboard, all twenty-four clock faces, the card grids and every utility page from Alarms to the Timer now grow with the glass they are on — and the about copy waits below the fold instead of surfacing halfway up it.
The timer had four looks and wore none of them until you committed. The setup screen wears the one you chose, Style moved to the header where the rest of the app keeps it, and the old table of session rows became a ring, a week, and eight weeks of days.
Open the Pomodoro timerA checklist on a phone was 14px, under a 17px heading and beside a 14px checkbox — and the board's scale is a clamp of viewport width and height that every phone pins to its floor, so nothing on a note could grow. Text size is now a choice in the board's Style panel, and the heading, the list, the checkboxes, the stamps and the paper's own padding all move together.
See the pinboardPutting a note down on the board used to bury whatever was under it, and the only cure was Tidy — which rearranges the whole wall, so moving one note cost you the arrangement of every other. Now the note you dropped keeps the spot, because you chose it, and the ones it covered move by the smallest step that clears. The calendar stays where it hangs, an overlap in a far corner is left alone, and a board with no room left keeps the overlap, the way a real one does.
See the pinboardA to-do happened once, and repeats were sent to Reminders — right for a bell, wrong for swimming and reading and brushing your teeth, which are not things to be told about but things to tick. Write "swim every day" and the same note returns each morning, keeping its pin, its place on the wall and its run of days. A checklist habit comes back with its boxes empty.
See the pinboardThe to-do list and the reminders were two products that never spoke. Now a to-do with a time appears among your reminders, sorted by when it will next make a noise; tick it there and it is done here — one record, seen from two sides. Sending a reminder to the board is the other kind of crossing: it makes a real note, which keeps the reminder’s time, says where it came from, and stays when the reminder goes. Both are yours to switch off.
Add a reminderSending a reminder to the board used to mean waiting for it to ring. Now it is in the row menu, for the moment the thought arrives rather than the moment the bell does — and the note that appears carries a small tag naming the reminder that made it, so a week later the board still knows.
See the pinboardA task you did not finish used to reappear among today's, indistinguishable from the ones you chose this morning. The board now says what carried over. And a note whose reminder is mid-cycle shows what that reminder is doing, so finishing the one can finish the other.
See the pinboardNobody types "every 50 minutes". They type "squat 2 min rest 2 min", or "45 min work 15 min break" — and every one of those was read as a single reminder that rang once and never again, which is the kind of failure that looks like success. Both halves are read now, either order, in three languages. A cycle counted in seconds is declined rather than guessed at, and points at the breathing timer instead.
Add a reminderFifty minutes of work and ten of break is a plan, and the plan meets the day. Took fifteen instead of ten? The fifty starts again from now. Leaving a break early starts the work instead, and five more minutes keeps the half you are in rather than throwing it away. Nothing is remembered, so a mis-tap costs one cycle rather than leaving a record to undo.
Add a reminderSetting an alarm at a desk meant clicking a stepper once per minute, and a plain dropdown would have taken the typing away with the clicking. The numerals stay typeable — 0 7 4 5, Enter — and the same field opens a list of hours and minutes for the times you would rather just point at.
Set an alarmEvery face so far has been a way of showing numbers. This one is an object: a warm light chamber above, woven speaker cloth below, and the time glowing from behind the weave, with single fibres crossing in front of the lit dots. The glow follows the real hour rather than sitting still — low and ember-warm through the night, climbing towards dawn — so a glance across a dark room tells you roughly where you are in it.
Open the sunrise clockA lamp on a blank page is a picture of a lamp. This one now stands on a drawn nightstand and lights the room it is in: the walls dim and warm with the hour, and the glow it throws follows the clock wherever you drag it. It goes matte in there too — a crisp white highlight is a reflection of a light that room does not have, and it was the single thing making the object look pasted on.
Open the sunrise clockThis was the only face that ignored the theme, on the grounds that an accent-tinted sunrise comes out lavender. True, and the wrong lesson: Moon Glow is one of the lamp’s own five colourways, so a cool theme choosing it was the design working. Change the theme now and the nearest of the five lights — Mermaid the sage one, Blush the rose. Showroom hands the swatches back to you.
Open the sunrise clockangrybear tried the board and wrote back, six notes’ worth, and five of them shipped in a day. The picked filter tab now drops, grows and darkens, because every tab is its own colour of paper and colour alone could not say which one was on. A note typed under Today is for today. Urgent notes carry a red edge and a !! stamp whatever holds them to the wall, and priority lives on the note itself. Shift-enter pins and hands you the next blank note. And what you can type is written in chalk along the foot of the board, where a small grey link under the composer had been keeping it. The sixth note asked for resizable cards; that one waits, because Tidy packs one width.
See the pinboardangrybear asked whether the cards could match the board, and they could not: six pastels chosen for green baize, on every wall. Now each surface has its own six. The whiteboard takes bright sticky-note colours, slate pale ones that sit quietly under dim light, linen deeper warm ones that stand off the beige, and on the blush board no paper sinks into the pink. A note only ever stored its paper’s name, so nothing moved: pin a note on green, switch to slate, and it is the same paper in slate’s light.
See the pinboardThe wall was one screen, and a busy week ran out of it. It can now be two or three, from the Style panel and never by default, because the board's whole point is everything at a glance and that is a trade to make on purpose. The frame stays put with the tabs, the pad, the pile and the clock; only the wall scrolls under them, and a note stays exactly where it was pinned when the wall grows or shrinks around it.
See the pinboardOn the last day of August, steps stopped scheduling anything: only a note's heading could, which fixed a real bug and quietly took the bell away from “meet team 12 pm” inside a morning routine. Three ways to give it back were costed and the cheapest shipped: the earliest time found in a note's steps becomes the note's time when the heading names none. The note rings once, under its own name, the step keeps its words, and the composer shows the bell before you pin.
See the pinboardA sunrise lamp's whole promise is light before the alarm, and this one had been rising at four every morning whoever it was for. Set a morning alarm and the lamp now keeps to embers until half an hour before it rings, then climbs to its dawn exactly on time, the way the bedside originals do. The window's light stays on the sun's schedule, so an early riser gets a lit room around a lamp that has not woken yet. It followed two quieter fixes: the night floor went properly low, digits and all, and the wall behind the lamp stopped glowing hardest at three in the morning.
Open the sunrise clockPeople kept saying the clock had no settings. It had fifty, behind a Menu button that fades after three seconds and a drawer that lists the whole site before it lists the clock. The To-Do board had already answered that with a Style button on the board, so the clock got its own: a palette icon in the header strip that opens the handful of things you change in a normal week — face, colours, background, the time switches and the bedside ones. Nothing left the menu; the panel only shows the same settings where you are already looking, and the footer links back to the full settings.
Open the clockClock with Seconds used to be a page about a clock: pick a face, pick a theme, then press a button to go and watch it somewhere else. Now the page is the clock. It fills the screen on its theme, the title shrinks to one line, and every choice — face, theme, 12h or 24h, seconds, AM/PM, the date, fullscreen, or opening it on the main clock — sits in one floating dock that fades a few seconds after you stop moving. Fullscreen leaves nothing but the time, a phone held upright stacks it, and what you pick here is remembered for this page alone. The explanation and the questions moved below the clock, for whoever scrolls.
Open the clock with secondsClock with Seconds went first, and now every clock mode page works the same way. Digital, 24-hour, flip, focus, study, fullscreen, analog, night, big and sunrise each open as the clock itself, with a dock of the options that suit it: Dim for the night clock, S, M or L for the big one, a bedroom for the sunrise lamp to stand in. “Open full clock” carries the look you picked to the main clock, with an Undo if you would rather keep your own. The old page, a preview in a card under rows of pickers, is retired.
See every clock modeNight Clock was a dimmed digital clock on a warm theme. Now it is a mood for the bedside: a dark sky with faint stars and tonight’s real moon, the time in a low-blue tint — Amber, Red or Moonlight — at Bright, Low or Lowest, and the sleep your next alarm leaves you: when you would be asleep, how many 90-minute cycles that is, and the bedtimes that wake you at the end of one. Clock only leaves just the time and the moon, and the screen stays awake while the page is open. The same Night Sky face is on the main clock, with its tools in the Style panel.
Open the night clockFocus Clock became a quiet grey mood: one large clock in a monospaced type, the one thing you’re on written under it, and the seconds as a thin sweep, as digits or not at all. The intention is saved on this device, the screen stays awake while the page is open, and the same Focus face is on the main clock, with its tools in the Style panel.
Open the focus clockCozy Clock is a new mood: the time in a warm serif over rain running down a window, a fire, or snow falling outside, and all three land on the clock. Rain splashes on the digits and runs down them, snow settles on them and slowly melts, and sparks cling beneath them and cool to ash; tap or click the fire to stir it. Its sound is made in the browser from noise, shaped into rain, a crackling fire or a soft wind, so there is nothing to download, and it only starts when you tap Sound. The screen stays awake while the page is open, and the same Cozy face is on the main clock, with its tools in the Style panel.
Open the cozy clockLove Clock is a new mood for two people in different places: your time and your partner’s side by side on blush, each with its city and the part of the day it is there, a heart beating above them, and beneath them the day you are on together, the days to your anniversary, a countdown to the next time you meet and the hours between you. Tap the heart and hearts burst out of it; drag across the face and rose petals fall and settle on the words. Behind the clocks, a faint silhouette of the two of you follows your day, from a sunrise to the same moon at night, with a reunion when you are about to meet and a proposal on your anniversary; pin one, let them take turns, or turn them off. Send a heart shares a link that bursts hearts on their screen with your message; it carries only that message and your name, with no account and no server. Your details stay in this browser, the screen stays awake while the page is open, and the same Love face is on the main clock, with its details in the Style panel.
Open the love clockKoi Pond Clock is a new mood: a live koi pond seen from above, with the time drawn as light on its floor that blurs wherever the water moves. Tap to send out ripples and the fish darting, drag to leave a wake, and hold or press Feed to drop food and watch them race in. Lily and lotus pads drift, leaves and petals fall, butterflies and a dragonfly visit by day, small insects glow at dusk, and fireflies and the moon come out at night, all following your clock. Rain, sound made in the browser and sliders for the fish and the greenery sit in the dock, the screen stays awake while the page is open, and the same Koi Pond face is on the main clock, with its tools in the Style panel.
Open the koi pond clockThe koi pond grew into a living garden. Its water moves like water now, rippling where you tap and parting in a wake where you drag, and its lily pads are rooted to the floor among eelgrass, hornwort, irises, papyrus and mossy stones that stay. Then came Pond care: the koi get hungry and gather to beg until you feed them, Plant grows lily pads of your own and then water lilies and lotus that bloom over the hours, plants gently wither after a few days and are scooped out with a tap, and autumn leaves wait on the water to be cleared. Nothing is scored and nothing dies for being away, a note welcomes you back with what changed, the garden is saved in this browser and shared with the Koi Pond face on the main clock, and a Pond care switch in Settings turns it all off.
Open the koi pond clockThe clock mode pages and the main clock had grown apart, each with things the other lacked. Now every mode has Bedside, with the main clock’s Keep screen on and Nightstand, which dims the screen after a while and keeps it awake. The main clock has the AM/PM switch the modes had, and keeps a face’s own tools on screen, as its mode page does. And “Open full clock” became “Make this my clock”: it saves the face, theme, 12h or 24h, AM/PM, seconds, date, size, scene and both Bedside switches as your clock, then leaves you where you are, with an Undo and a link to go and see it.
See every clock modeStudy Clock became a warm paper mood: an analog face whose rim marks where the current study session and the break after it end, with a session longer than an hour kept to the same rim, the minutes the hand comes round to again in a deeper shade, and the time left counting down beside it, hours and all. Set how long you study and rest, from 10 to 90 minutes and from 5 to 30, name what you are studying if you like, and press Start: one session runs, then its break, and the clock asks whether you want another session, with Continue or Stop. Stop ends a session at any time and Skip break cuts a rest short; the buttons and the subject sit in the controls at the bottom and fade with them, so the face keeps to the clock. A soft chime, off until you turn on Sound, marks each change. The 12h or 24h clock and Bedside sit in its Settings, the screen stays awake while the page is open, and the same Study face is on the main clock, with its tools in the Style panel.
Open the study clockStudy Clock grew a journal, kept beside the dial. Today’s card is an illustrated note that changes when you open the page, start, rest or finish a session — never in the middle of one. A small plant grows one leaf for every day you study, counted once a session of at least 10 minutes is kept, and flowers on its 21st leaf; a missed day never takes a leaf away. This week shows your focused minutes day by day, Recent sessions asks what you studied, which you can skip, and on Monday a short note looks back on last week. A session is kept when it ends, or, if you press Stop after 10 minutes or more, with the minutes you studied; everything stays in this browser and in your backup. Each part is a switch in Settings under Journal, with only the card and the plant on at first, Dim while studying softens it during a session, and Clear the journal erases it.
Open the study clockThe 24-Hour Clock became three faces where the sky is the clock. The whole screen takes the colour of the sky right now, from deep indigo before dawn through rose, pale gold and clear blue to amber, violet dusk and night, worked out from today’s sunrise and sunset for your time zone, so nothing asks where you are. Sky Dial draws today’s sky round a ring with a glowing bead at now; Star Dial sets that ring among the stars, with tonight shaded and tonight’s moon at its real phase; and Sky Horizon sends the sun, then the moon, across a dotted arc above the horizon. Pick one from Face on the page or make it your clock; all three are on the main clock too, and seconds are there when you want them.
Open the 24-hour clockBig Clock became Glacier: giant numerals of ice, cracked, frosted and lit by the dawn, standing on a snowy mountain terrace high above the clouds, big enough to read from across the room. Turn on Snow and a snowstorm sweeps in, darkening the sky, settling on the digits and sliding off them now and then. Seconds sit small beneath the colon when you turn them on, 12h or 24h is beside them under Settings in the options at the bottom, and the screen stays awake while the page is open. Glacier is on the main clock too, with its weather in the Style panel, where the plain big faces are still under Face.
Open the big clockFireworks Clock opened: a night harbour where fireworks write the time in the sky, a fuse burns across each minute and a shell bursts on the minute to re-form the digits that change, with the city, the bridge and the moon in the water. Tap the sky to launch, or choose Launch, Finale or a shape from Shells; Countdown counts to New Year’s Eve or a moment of your own, then celebrates it. Sound is off until you turn it on in Settings, Space, F, A and S are its keys, and the face is on the main clock too, with its show in the Style panel.
Open the fireworks clockClock with Seconds gained fifteen digital faces, and not one of them uses a digital font: drums that roll like an odometer, a combination dial, the time spoken as a sentence, type that grows heavier across the minute, a measuring tape, filling columns, morphing tiles, one-stroke neon, shredded strips, a sundial’s turning shadow and digits made of tiny type. Four more are built from moving parts: a swarm of particles, a field of needles and halftone dots that play under your mouse or finger, and blocks that fall into place every second. Dot Matrix still opens the page; pick any of them from the face picker in the options at the bottom, and all fifteen are on the main clock too.
Open the clock with secondsStill the same two people, still tinkering. Every new thing we build earns another line here.
Back to clockEverything the story mentions, one tap away.