When comparing Timely vs Qbserve, the Slant community recommends Timely for most people. In the question“What are the best time tracking apps for freelancers?” Timely is ranked 8th while Qbserve is ranked 25th. The most important reason people chose Timely is:
A basic version of Timely is free, but you can opt to buy the Premium version for $2.99 that has more themes, sounds and challenges. The premium version also introduces cloud synchronization and disables ads.
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Pros
Pro Free version
A basic version of Timely is free, but you can opt to buy the Premium version for $2.99 that has more themes, sounds and challenges. The premium version also introduces cloud synchronization and disables ads.
Pro Provides own alarm tones
Over 25 wake up tones come with the app ranging from simple alarm sounds to synthesized music.
Pro Gorgeous display
Timely combines vibrant colors, smooth transition effects, and peaceful animations that make the user experience all the more enjoyable. From the neat scrolling effects to the futuristic looking timer, the artistic touch to this app is outstanding.
Pro Simple user interface
This app makes setting up alarms intuitive. A list of all alarms are displayed in one place that provides detail on when the time of the alarm, if it's enabled, and even what tone will play when the alarm sounds. There is no difficulty in figuring out how to use all of its features. Timely displays icons that make it easy for users to set new alarms, switch to nightstand or timer mode, or even find out what the "Smart Rise" feature is.
Pro Can be fixed to work with Android 10/11
Pro Alarms synchronization
Set the alarm time on any devices and all synced devices (you can chose) will ring simultaneously. Turning off the alarm on one device stops all of them.
Pro Timer and stopwatch included
Everything is so simple! Please make it work with Android 10.
Pro Custom themes
Timely comes with many different themes to use, and even comes with a feature to design your own colored themes.
Pro Comes with lock-screen widgets
Pro Wake up tasks
4 possible wake up tasks are allowed to be enabled. In order to shut off the alarm, the user must complete the set task(s).
Pro Invoice generation
It's possible to generate PDFs with invoices based on tracked project time or create ones from scratch.
Pro Automatic project tracking
Qbserve categorizes project time automatically based on opened documents and web pages.
Pro Dynamic icons
The dock icon will change color depending on what you are currently doing, acting as a reminder to get back to work when you've become distracted. You can also set goals, and in the status bar you will see a percentage of how close you are to your daily goal.
Pro Data is stored locally
Pro Wide database
There are over 7500 apps/sites/games in the database which provides lots of data for more accurate tracking.
Pro Differentiates between work and play
Qbserve can determine the difference between productive and distractive activities. It doesn't use a static algorithm either - it will read content page-by-page to determine whether or not it is productive or not. this allows certain chats to count as work, and other chats to not count, even if you are using the same chat service for both.
Cons
Con Not compatible with Android 10
The alarm app does not pop-up when it rings. Without the app GUI, you can't dismiss the alarm. So you have to launch manually the app when it rings to dismiss.
Con Development stopped
Company has been bought by Google and development has been stopped since then.
Con Alarm does not work at all in Marshmallow
If you have Android 6.0 Marshmallow, this app is useless as an alarm.
Con Cannot use custom alarm sounds
It's not possible to have Timely play your favorite .mp3 to wake you up, or any other custom sound file for that matter.
Con No synchronization
Since Qbserve is a serverless solution – you can't sync your database between multiple Macs.
Con Short free trial
While it's good that there is a 10 day free trial, 10 days isn't very long. A longer trial would allow for better judgement of how much more productive the software made you.