Tomato Timer (formerly Pomodoro) is a timer application designed to facilitate the Pomodoro Technique engineered by Francesco Cirillo.
The name and icon of the app originate from the fact that "pomodoro" means "tomato" in Italian. Presumably the name was changed to appeal to a broader audience that does not know about the Pomodoro Technique, but at the same time the app is very much designed to serve the technique's use, given the prompts mentioned above, which take the form of a moving hand image that points out the next appropriate timer as well as a customizable voice and sound prompt. The number of short breaks taken is tracked by dots above the "long break" coffee cup icon - when they're all blue, it's time to take a long break, and doing so resets that counter.
Sam's Protip: Not impressed with the built-in alarm sounds? Replacing sound files within the application package does the trick.
Pros
- Visual and audio prompts when timer completes
- Big icons make basic control easy
Cons
- Those not using Pomodoro method may be confused by multiple timer types