What each app is for
Tiimo is a visual planner. Its core screen is a timeline of the day, with tasks as coloured blocks you can see coming. It is built for people whose difficulty is that time is invisible: a day that exists as a list feels like nothing, while a day drawn on a strip feels real.
Orbit is a routine runner. It has no timeline. It holds one sequence — a morning, a wind-down, a deep-work block — and moves through it with you, one step at a time, showing the current step on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. It is built for people whose difficulty is not seeing the day but getting through the sequence without stopping.
That difference explains almost everything else about the two apps.
Side by side
| Tiimo | Orbit | |
|---|---|---|
| Made by | tiimo ApS, Denmark | Aron de Groot (Groot Apps), Netherlands |
| Apple devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone only |
| Minimum iOS | 18 | 26 |
| Download | Free, paid subscription | Free, paid subscription |
| Core screen | Visual timeline of the day | One step of one routine |
| Streak on a missed day | — | Freeze spent automatically |
| Account required | Yes | No |
| Storage | Cloud account | On device, optional private iCloud |
Platform facts checked against each app's App Store listing on 6 September 2026. Pricing changes often enough that it is worth checking the current numbers yourself before deciding.
Where Tiimo is genuinely better
It covers more devices. Tiimo runs on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Orbit is iPhone-only, and if you plan on a tablet or want a glanceable watch complication, that settles it.
The timeline is a real solution to a real problem. For time blindness specifically, seeing the day as a drawn strip is more effective than any amount of text. Orbit has no equivalent.
It handles a whole day, not a routine. Tiimo will hold your appointments, your one-off tasks and your recurring blocks in the same place. Orbit deliberately handles only routines and will not replace a calendar.
It has a company behind it. A team, years of track record, and tens of thousands of App Store ratings. Orbit is one person, which has advantages, but continuity is not one of them.
Where Orbit is genuinely better
It runs the routine rather than displaying it. Once a routine is started, the current step follows you out of the app — Lock Screen, Dynamic Island, widget. Getting distracted costs you thirty seconds instead of the whole morning, because the recovery cue is already on the screen you were about to pick up anyway.
Missing a day does not cost you anything. Freezes are granted as a streak grows and spent automatically when you miss. You do not have to open the app to claim them, which matters, because the reason you missed the day is that you did not open the app.
No account, and the data stays put. Orbit needs no sign-up and stores routines on the device, syncing only through your own private iCloud container if you turn it on.
It starts in one action. One tap starts the routine. There is no day to arrange first.
How to choose
Ask which sentence describes your last failed week.
"I could not see what the day held, so I lost it." — that is a planning problem, and Tiimo is built for it.
"I knew exactly what to do and still could not get through the sequence." — that is an initiation and transition problem, and it is the one Orbit was built for.
If it is both, run both: a planner for the shape of the day and a routine runner for the two or three sequences that decide whether the day starts at all. They do not conflict.