A Honest Review: Flip Clock Apps for iOS —DClock

Since I got my own Apple Watch cellular I decided to stop taking my iPhone everywhere with me. As a side effect I realized I need a different job for the phone, so it doesn’t just lay on the desk useless.

First interesting usage I decided to take a deeper look into is using it as a clock. Yep, you read it right — my iPhone XR priced for around $350 main job is to be a clock. Thakfully, I can also use it to buy pizza :)

Ok, today let’s take a honest look at DClock app for iPHone — Link to App Store here.

Pomodoro

DClock has Pomodoro

First thing I spotted: it has customizable Pomodoro! You can set the session and break length. What’s specific about it: you cannot quickly switch back to normal clock — first you need to pause the Pomodoro and then tap on reset. Not sure, what’s the point here.

but you cannot cancel it quickly :)

Clock Customization

The next thing I realized about DClock — it has alot of customization options. You can select from plenty of themes and each of it has its own customization options. You could even change the clock font color, use different backgrounds or clock animations.

a lot of themes to choose from

after choosing a theme you have more customization options

so you can customize it to something like this

Alarm Clock

And yes, it has alarm clock, however it didnt work well for me. Despite it has different alarm sounds I got just notification and single vibration — definitely won’t wake me up! Also, the repeatition settings are too simple — you can just choose a day of the week. But what if I need the app to remind me about my grandma birthday?

sound settings for the alarm

plenty of settings, but some o these options lead to other apps :(

Summary — What’s good:

• Simple Pomodoro: enhances the app usability
• a lot of customization options
• Screen brighteness: you can control it with simple swipe up/down
• customizable quotes: quite interesting idea
• hourly chime: you get it, right?
• Plenty of customizable widgets: of course, you need to pay for the app or watch ads to use them

What’s not so good & improvement suggestions:

• adds: when you start the app or choose any of premium options then you’ll see the 20 secs add. The solution: buy the app for around $2.
• alarm clock not working well, don’t know why.
• some menu option direct me to other apps — I don’t like it, as if I pay for the app then i will still see such advertisement :( Developer: please, move it to the bottom of the menu and name it “My Other apps”, etc. so it is clear for the user what these menu options do.
• Focus mode: I don’t think this option is still needed as the new iOS already has it.
• nice to have: watchOS integration, so I could turn off the alarm easily (when it works)
• the clock numbers are a bit small, would be good to have them resized when I turn off quotations or date.

Free version good for:

• day / night clock
• pomodoro clock

I hope you found something helpful, or maybe there’s something missing that you think should be in this article too? Please share it in the comments below. I promise to respond to each and every one of you.
Cheers.