As a presenter one of my biggest challenges is staying on time. However, it's more than just staying on time it really boils down to knowing how much time is left. While I can certainly have a clock on stage and even a timer, it's difficult for me to manage my time that way. When I'm in the groove of presenting, my brain can't do the math of "how much time do I have left?" It's great when someone can be assigned to give me a 5 or 10 minute warning, but I don't always have the luxury. So having an App that can not only manage my time for the entire presentation, but do so for each section and do it visually is a huge plus.
Timer With Sections helps keep me on time
One of my colleagues pointed me to this App and I've used it ever since. You set the App up by creating a new "Performance" then you can go in and create all of the different sections for your performance. You can assign each section a block of time and decide whether or not those sections are "Expandable" or "Shrinkable". Of course you can also turn on an alarm for each section so that you know when it's time to move on. The App works as advertised.
Get it here from the 
It's good, but it could be so much better
Like I said the App works as advertised and I have used it several times successfully. However, it could really be great if the developer would add a few more things.
For example, I stated that I like a 5 or 10 minute warning. Sometimes both. I would be great to be able to set these as separate alarms for each section with different sounds. This way without even looking I would no how much time I had left with audible warnings and the final alarm sound would mean "time's up!" I'd also like to see an option to keep the display on.
Your iPhone or iPod will go to sleep with the app running. While the App does continue to run, you no longer see the nice visuals once your device goes to sleep. It would also be great to have Push Notifications. This way even if it went to sleep, I could still be alerted that my time is almost up.
Lastly the app needs a few more controls. For example, I would like to see a "next" button. In other words a section didn't take as long as I scheduled it to, so I'd like to go to the next section AND move that remaining time to it. I'd also like more flexibility over pausing and adjusting the expandable/shrinkable slots. Although I ultimately want to stay within my given time slot, some sections will go long and some will be short. I need to be able to adjust on the fly more easily than the app does currently.
The Bottom Line
This App does what it does and I do like it. However, having used it a few times it just makes me want a few more things before I could rate it higher. If you're a presenter, it's worth a download.
Timer With Sections
Timer with Sections allows you to assign time slots to your presentation/performance so that you can visually see how much time is left for each section as well as which section you should be on.
- Christian Fries
- Get on App Store
- $1.99
All info was collected on 24th February, 2010 when the app was reviewed.
About Terry White
Terry is the co-author of The Best Selling "The iPhone Book" 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th editions. He has been active in the industry for over 25 years and is the founder and president of MacGroup-Detroit, Inc., Michigan's largest Macintosh Users Group, host of the Adobe Creative Suite Podcast and a technology writer - Terry White Tech Blog.
Thanks for the review – as an instructor this is just what I need! Though I agree the adjustments would make it so much better.
Hi Terry.
I just saw your review. I will try to consider your feedback in the development.
However, I do have a question regarding the request for that “Next” button: Did you know that you can skip (early terminate) a section by swiping with your finger from left to right? If you did, how would that next button be different from swiping? Swiping ends the current section and allocated the additional time to the next expandable section. If you define all sections expandable it should just be what you want. Isn’t it? There is a demo video available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUHitOi_pCs
Good to know! thanks for the Tips. Looking forward to your update.
T