How To Count Down To A Time Instead Of A Duration

When A Time Beats A Duration

A duration is natural for cooking: ten minutes for the pasta. For many other things the deadline is a clock time:

• a parking ticket or a meter;
• leaving the house to catch a train or reach a meeting;
• the end of a lunch break;
• taking something out of the oven at a set time.

Working out “how many minutes until 5:30” is easy to get wrong when you are in a hurry, and you have to redo it if you set the timer a bit later.

How To Write It In TypeTick

Type the time in the field, the way you would say it:

• until 5:30 pm, at 5pm, 5:30 pm;
• 17:30, or in Italian alle 17:30.

The card shows the time left and “Ends at 5:30 pm”. If that time has already passed today, the timer counts down to the same time tomorrow.

The One Detail About Morning Times

TypeTick reads times and durations from the same field, so it needs a hint to tell them apart:

• 17:30 is a clock time, because 17 cannot be minutes.
• 9:30 on its own is read as 9 minutes and 30 seconds, like a stopwatch reading.

For a morning time, add the word: at 9:30, until 9:30, 9:30 am or alle 9:30.

Adding Time Later

Plans change. With a timer running, type +5 to add five minutes, or +15 min for more. The +1 and +5 buttons under the card do the same.

Using It Again Tomorrow

Every timer you start goes into Recents. A countdown to a time is saved as the time, not as the minutes it lasted: start it again tomorrow and it counts down to 5:30 again, from whenever you tap it. Star it to keep it among the quick buttons on the main screen.

It Rings Even If You Forget

TypeTick sets an exact alarm for the end, so it rings with the screen off, in battery saver or after the phone restarts. While you wait, you can keep the countdown visible over other apps. If you want to see how late you are, the timer keeps counting past zero; you can turn that off in Settings › Timer.