As a kid I spent a lot of time at my grandparents' place. They had that grandfather clock you never see nowadays. When it struck twelve I knew it was lunchtime and my Grandma had almost certainly cooked something delicious. Later, when I started school, I was given a Casio with an hourly beep. Then I got my first Symbian smartphone and the very first app I installed was a cuckoo clock. Now I've written my own iPhone app that brings back those good times at my grandparents' and lets you know the time without having to look at the screen.
Long story short Tinny(not) is the result. It's an hourly chime and speaking clock for iPhone. It rings the hour from your lock screen with the app closed, using one of 14 built-in sounds, or a voice that speaks the time aloud in whatever voice you have installed. The name is a joke about the one thing people feared it would sound like - it is Tinny and it is not tinny.
It is free, not just free to try. The hourly chime and 5 of the built-in sounds cost nothing for as long as you use the app. The speaking clock, custom notification text and the rest of the sounds come as a single one-time purchase. No subscription.
The main controls carry VoiceOver labels and announce their state: the chime switch, the hour grid, the sound list, the custom text field. What I like is you can turn off Lock Screen, Notification Centre and Banners for the app and leave sounds on and the whole thing becomes sound-only so there is nothing to read and nothing to miss.
Each quarter hour can have its own sound, set right from the hour grid, or stay silent if you would rather not hear it. You can also import a recording of your own in case you want something more personal than the built-in sounds.
The whole app is just 9MB. It is available on the App Store - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tinny-not-hourlychime-bell/id6762549292.
If something does not read right with VoiceOver or you just have a question, please, mail to: support@tinnynot.com
Comments
Sounds
Does it has those sounds from the grand father clock, I like them very much. Also big Ben? Is it on the app store and what is the name, how much is it?
@Holger
Sure, it does have. And many more. Just give it a try - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tinny-not-hourlychime-bell/id6762549292. 5 of the built-in sounds cost nothing
question
Hi,
question: Will this app shine every quarter hour? I have an app that's similar that will chime every quarter hour. Also, does this app have the old digital watch beep?
@JC
Yeah, it chimes on the hour, every 30 minutes, or every 15. And it does have beep sound. Did you try it?
no
no. however, it sounds interesting. I'll think about it.
Eldar S.
Please give me the name and not the link, using my window PC to check applevis. I do nnot use my phone or iPad to do. Thanks and be cool.
@Holger Fiallo
Here it is - Tinny(not): HourlyChime & Bell
A small accessibility issue…
Thank you for this app, which works quite well overall, particularly thanks to the alarm volume being perfectly audible.
However, I would like to report an accessibility issue with VoiceOver. When I select an option, such as “Hourly” or “Every Day,” VoiceOver does not announce that the option has been selected or indicate its selected state. This makes it difficult for VoiceOver users to know which option is currently active.
I’m using iOS 26.6.1 on an iPhone 13 Pro Max.
@Laurent
Thank you for the kind words, and especially for taking the time to report this.
I'll certainly work on fixing that issue. It'll be in the next update.
If you notice anything else that doesn't read the way it should, please let me know. I'd rather hear about it.
Haven't tried it yet
Hello,
It is nice to see other developers making new apps, adding to the community. I've personally not downloaded it yet as I do have a clock app that fits the bill. Could you perhaps give a bit more details on how this app compares to the competition, such as Val?
excited to try this
Hi.
I'm excited to see more clock apps coming out of the woodwork.
I'll report my findings and feedback.
first impressions
First impressions, not great. There's no real semblance of structure, there's several unlabeled elements, a random set of buttons labeled 1 to 24, something about schedules with no real explanation on anything, etc. I'm not trying to be discouraging but this needs to go through much more testing with as many people you can find, because currently it is not app store ready.
@Zach M
Thanks so much for taking the time to review the app. Appreciate the feedback!
Tinny(not) is 9mb but features rich, zero subscriptions, collects zero data, and gives you a single, distraction-free screen. That’s the whole philosophy: simple, light, minimalist, and out of your way.
Now to your specific points:
Unlabeled elements are the hour grid buttons labeled 1 through 24 (those are the labels). It’s a manual toggle for power users.
But you don’t have to touch it at all. The presets (Work hours, Waking hours, Weekdays, etc.) are right there and do the job in one tap.
No structure is by design. It’s a single-screen app so you don’t dig through menus. Presets for simplicity, a manual grid for control that’s the structure.
It’s already live, approved, and working reliably in the background for lots of users. It does exactly what it promises: a gentle, nostalgic chime without the bloat.
Thanks again for the honest take. Hope this clears things up!
Unlabeled elements
Can they be name? I think that is the issue the person is pointing out.
@Eldar S
Hi Eldar S,
You wrote,
AppleVis is a community for blind, DeafBlind, and low vision users of Apple products and services. We love it when developers come to AppleVis to share their app with the community. This is a critical part of how real-world accessibility moves forward, and our forums are a testament to what can happen when developers genuinely connect with users to improve accessibility. That said, the implicit expectation is that developers sharing their app with our community will be receptive to feedback (including criticism) about how their app works with VoiceOver and other accessibility features; and statements like "It’s already live, approved, and working reliably in the background for lots of users" come across as incredibly dismissive.
What voice does this use for telling the time?
Voice does this app used to tell the time? Is it just using the built-in voice of our screen reader voiceover? Does it have its own built-in voice in the app? Thanks haven’t tried the app yet.
@Michael Hansen
Thanks for moderating this and for setting expectations clearly.
I want to draw a distinction, though, between the two comments in this thread, because I don't think they're the same kind of feedback.
Previously Laurent reported something specific and reproducible and that's a real actionable bug report, and I committed to a fix, which is already in progress.
Zach's comment was a general verdict, "not app store ready," without a device, OS version, or any steps to reproduce. It also stated as fact that elements are "unlabeled," which isn't accurate: every control in the app, including each hour-grid button, carries an accessibility label. The grid format itself (12-hour AM/PM vs 24-hour) follows the user's region on purpose, so it matches how people in that locale actually read time rather than showing everyone the same layout.
Pointing out that the app is already live on the App Store wasn't meant to wave off the feedback. It was a factual response to being told the app isn't "app store ready," when it already is. I'm glad to be told exactly what didn't work for Zach the same way Laurent told me, and I'll fix whatever turns out to be a real issue. What I can't act on is a general impression with no specifics behind it.
Happy to keep this constructive.
@Zach, if you can point to which elements didn't announce correctly and on what setup, I'll look into it directly.
happy to elaborate, and a question
Hi Eldar.
I'm happy to elaborate on what was meant by unlabeled elements since I too did not find the app very intuitive.
There are a lot of placeholders which should be hidden from voiceover.
A perfect example of this is when you choose a sound, there's an icon next to the sound name and both play when clicking on it, but the icon with the placeholder adds unnecessary clutter to the screen.
Alt text is not the same as an accessibility label.
When I was setting up the app, I'd seen this. Rectangle With A Filled Top-Third Inset Image
That doesn't provide any meaningful information as to what I'm supposed to do with it, and being a clock enthusiast myself and given that I have my own clock app, I generally consider myself a power user.
The schedules screen would be easier to navigate if it used the wheel style picker, rather than a grid which needs to be scrolled through.
I do think it needs more work.
My question, are you blind, do you/have you used the app with voiceover alone?
Have you used an app which has been confirmed to work well with voiceover?
@Singer Girl
Hi, thanks for asking. Honestly, I'd love to let you pick one of Siri's voices (they are great), but Apple doesn't allow third-party apps access to those through the speech API. If a Siri voice happens to be selected in your device's spoken content settings then the system just swaps in a different voice of the same language.
Btw, same story with volume. Apple's guidelines ask apps to lean on the system volume control rather than build their own.
There's a good range of built-in voices though, so I'd bet you'll find one you like.
@Quinton Williams
Hi Quinton,
Thank you, this is exactly the kind of detail that's useful.
You're right about the icon. Same issue with the waveform and sparkles icons. I can see it now that you've pointed it out, and I'll fix it.
On the wheel picker for the schedule screen - I'll think about it properly rather than promise something I haven't tested.
I'm not blind. I have high myopia, around -8 diopters. I've only gone through the app with VoiceOver myself in a fairly surface-level way, and I'm sure things have slipped past me that someone who relies on it daily would catch right away. That's actually why I posted here in the first place: for feedback from people who actually use VoiceOver.
@Eldar S - Thank You for the Additional Info
Hi Eldar,
I appreciate the additional information. It is clear that my initial conclusions about you being unaware of VoiceOver and accessibility were not accurate, and for that I want to apologize.
More broadly, AppleVis exists as a place for people to be able to openly and honestly share their opinion of apps. If someone feels that an app is not App Store ready, they should be able to say that here openly.
Thanks,
Michael
@Quinton Williams
Hi Quinton,
Quick update. I went through the sound list and fixed the icon clutter you flagged: the checkmark, waveform and sparkles icons are hidden from VoiceOver now. This time I confirmed it with an actual VoiceOver pass on my own phone.
I also went back to the schedule screen.
I looked into the wheel picker rather than just thinking about it. A from-to wheel is a real option, but Voice Control can't tap a wheel value directly, only scroll to it, while the current grid buttons can be tapped by name. So I'm honestly not sure it's a clear win for everyone here, maybe just part of the community.
You use VoiceOver daily and run your own clock app, so I'd rather ask than guess. With the labeled grid plus one-tap presets as they work now, does that get you where you need to go? Or would you still want the wheel, even knowing the Voice Control tradeoff?
clarification on wheel picker
It's not so much that I can't get where I need to go in the grid, it's that it takes a ton of scrolling when I could use a wheel style one, move to the hour I want and even long press and swipe up/down and quickly jump to where I want to go.
Additionally, if the device is using 12 hour time as most in the US are, it's only 12 hours/swipes, rather than needing to perform multiple three finger swipes in order to find the correct hour.
Even when using 24 hour time, the ability to long press and swipe makes scrolling through the hours much quicker and more efficient.
The native clock app demonstrates this perfectly while setting an alarm, and I'd modeled my own app after it.
question regarding sounds
One more question.
I noticed you used a cuckoo clock sound for the chalet preset.
Does it actually count out the hours? ex. one cuckoo for 1 o'clock, three cuckoos for 3 o'clock, etc?
I ask since you'd mention your grandparents' clock which was almost guarantied to behave this way, and your description lead me to the same conclusion.
However, The only sound which seems to be able to do this is the chalet one.
Am I correct in my assumption?
I know iOs does not make it easy, particularly with clocks which have melody sequences plus strikes.
@Quinton Williams
Hi Quinton,
First, the cuckoo question. It doesn't count out the hour, and I don't think it should. Twelve cuckoos at noon would get old fast, and if it fires in an office at 3pm, most people around you have probably never heard a real cuckoo clock, let alone would understand why your phone just did that three times in a row. My grandparents' clock in the story was more about the feeling of an hour striking than a literal count. So I kept the sound itself simple. If enough people actually ask for the counted version, I'm open to adding it as an option.
The wheel picker is something I've already been looking at closely. Weighing the swipe count against what a straight wheel costs elsewhere. Neither option has come out as the clearly right answer yet, and I'm still working on finding something better than either one, and your detail about the 24-hour swipe count, plus the long-press-scrub idea from the system alarm picker, is useful input for that.
thanks for your responses
Thank you for your responses.
I'll be watching this thread closely to see how this app evolves.
Although, I can say I regularly swap between several chiming clock presets and it feels old in the best way.
updates
Hi all,
1.3.2 is out, and a lot of what changed since my last post came from this thread.
VoiceOver now says which option is selected, whether it’s Hourly, Every Day, one of the hour presets or a single hour or day button.
I really wanted to keep the app to one screen, but swiping through 24 hour buttons to reach the sounds was too much with VoiceOver. So the presets stay where they were, and a new Custom button opens the hours or days in a separate sheet with an Active Hours rotor that jumps between the hours that are on.
The schedule stays readable at the largest text sizes, and when a schedule needs more chimes than iOS allows, the app warns you instead of silently dropping some.
Hope you like it. If something still reads wrong, please, let me know.
Waiting for the Apple Watch version
Hello! I’d be excited to find an app that would speak the time every hour for my Apple Watch Series 11….
@eyesfreesight
Hi, there's no Apple Watch version yet and I don't have an Apple Watch myself.
As far as I can tell Apple Watch doesn't let apps play their own sound on a schedule, so a watch version couldn't speak the hour the way the iPhone app does.
But Apple Watch already has Chimes built in that might help. It plays a bell or bird sound on the hour, or every 30 or 15 minutes. You can find it under Settings, Clock, Chimes.
Re: @eyesfreesight
I'm aware of those chimes, but it doesn't sayt the time....
Speaking of the apps, I think I've heard of a paid app for an Apple Watch that can speak the time in the background.... Maybe I'm wrong about it and I'm mixing something up though :)