Why I built KeepOnFirst Focus

I honestly never planned to build a Pomodoro timer.

Years ago, I heard Audrey Tang mention the Pomodoro technique while talking about work habits. It is a way to protect focus from constant interruption: a fixed rhythm of concentration and rest that keeps flow from being chopped into pieces. I nodded along at the time — the idea sounded good — but honestly, I never started using it.

Part of that was laziness. Part of it was that after trying a round of apps, none of them gave me that "fine, I will start right now" feeling. So the idea sat untouched for years.

Then, while brainstorming new app ideas this month, it suddenly came back. If I could not find a timer I wanted to use, I could simply build one.

The name Apple rejected

The first name was the obvious one: KeepOnFirst Pomodoro. App Store review rejected it immediately, citing Guideline 4.1 — Design — Copycats: the app's name, icon, and subtitle contained wording closely associated with third-party content ("Pomodoro"), which could create a misleading association.

I was genuinely confused. "Pomodoro" has practically become a generic term, and plenty of apps on the store use it. But when Apple says no, it is no.

I renamed the app KeepOnFirst Focus, still carrying a question mark in my head: wait, isn't "Focus" used by lots of apps too? This is fine? That time, it passed. I still do not have a confident explanation — the App Store simply has its own logic.

In a way, though, the new name fits what the app became. Instead of arguing about the name of a methodology, it comes back to one thing: whether you can actually enter a focused state.

I mostly use it on my Mac

I originally built it for iPhone, but after using it myself I realized the Mac is where it fits best. Most of the time I am already at the computer: writing code, writing articles, reading documents, thinking. Pulling out my phone just to start a timer is exactly the kind of friction I will lazily avoid.

So KeepOnFirst Focus installs directly on macOS, running the iPad layout: large, clean, quiet. My usual flow now is: open the Mac, click KeepOnFirst Focus, start. No device switching, no hunting for the phone — the focus stays in the same space as the work.

A few notes for fellow app developers

Because I genuinely use this app every day, I am picky about details. The place I spent the most time was not the timer itself but every situation where a session could be interrupted: backgrounding and returning, locking and unlocking, rotating the screen, and moving between iPhone, iPad, and macOS. You rarely notice these transitions — until one fails and the entire focus session breaks.

More features is not better; deleting is harder

Some features I built and later removed myself. Not because they were hard, but because I noticed a rule: the moment I start finding a feature slightly annoying, it should not stay. Setup flows, heavy statistics, and excessive reminders all existed at some point. What survived were the few features that never get in the way.

There is no grand roadmap. My test has always been simple: if I have not opened the app for several days, something is wrong, and I go back and change it. Sometimes it is the UI, sometimes a flow, sometimes one tiny interaction. If the change makes me want to open it again, it was worth doing.

It is not here to push you

It will not tell you whether you performed well today, and it will not remind you how fast anyone else is going. It does one thing: when you decide to focus, it holds that block of time for you — whether you start it on a phone or, like me, straight from the Mac.

If you have been stuck lately — able to sit down but unable to settle in, surrounded by tools that are all too noisy — that may not be a discipline problem. You might just need something that does not keep interrupting you. If you are looking for a quieter tool, KeepOnFirst Focus might be exactly that.