Your own version

Your own Forest-style focus timer on your iPhone

Forest turns staying off your phone into a tree that grows. If you'd like your own take on the idea, a garden you design, session lengths that fit your studying, statistics only you see, describe it to Borel. It writes a native focus timer in Swift that you try in your browser and then keep on your iPhone.

Updated . Borel isn’t connected to Forest.

A prompt to start from
“A focus timer where each finished session adds a plant to my garden. I pick a subject and a length (25, 45 or 60 minutes), then a short break follows. If I leave the app during a session, the plant wilts and the session doesn't count. Show this week's garden as a grid and a chart of focused minutes per subject.”

About Forest

What people like about Forest

In our words, from what Forest says about itself.

  • A tree grows while you focus, and leaving the app can cost you the tree.
  • Deep Focus and Time Guard, which block other apps during and outside a session.
  • Real trees: Forest supports tree planting through Trees for the Future, a nonprofit.

Forest's core focus features are free, with no credit card. Forest Plus is a subscription whose price, Forest says, varies by region and platform, so it isn't shown on its site.

Made for you

What your own focus timer can do

What the prompt above builds, and what you can change by asking Borel in plain words.

  • A reward you design

    A skyline that gains a building, a jar that fills with marbles or a pixel garden that grows after every finished block.

  • Blocks that fit your work

    25 and 5, 50 and 10, or one long exam-practice stretch with a single break, saved as presets.

  • Statistics only you see

    Focused minutes per day and per subject on a Swift Charts graph that never leaves the phone.

  • A tap when time's up

    A haptic tap ends each block while the app is open, and a lock screen reminder covers the times it isn't.

Said plainly

How it's different

  • It can't block other apps or use Screen Time; the most it does is notice that you left and not count the session.
  • No real trees are planted when you finish; Forest's planting partnership is Forest's own.
  • There's no group session where several people grow one tree together.
  • Your app isn't Forest and won't look or work like it: it has only what you ask Borel to build, and none of Forest's own content.
  • Your data stays in your own app: on your iPhone by default, or in your app's own database in Borel's cloud if you add accounts.

How to get yours

From the prompt to your home screen

  • 1

    Start from the prompt

    Change anything in it first: names, rules, screens. Borel asks what it needs to know, then writes the app in Swift and SwiftUI.

  • 2

    Use it in your browser

    It opens in a live iPhone simulator streamed from Borel's Mac, at no cost. Building starts free, with 5 free credits a day, up to 30 a month.

  • 3

    Keep it on your iPhone

    With Pro, from $20 a month, Borel Companion installs it with a free Apple ID, up to 3 apps at a time, and renews each one every 7 days while it runs.

How to make a pomodoro timer appThe screens it needs, what it keeps, the iPhone features it can use and what to ask for next.See the guide

Frequently asked questions

No. Blocking apps needs Apple's Screen Time permissions, which Borel doesn't build in. Your timer can notice when you leave it and mark that session as lost.

Yes. Describe the style you want, or ask for pictures made by the AI that comes with Borel apps, and each finished session adds one.

Yes. The timer runs on the phone and sessions are saved with SwiftData, so it needs no connection at all.

Yes. Each session carries a subject, and a weekly chart adds up the minutes for each one.

Make your own focus timer

Start from the prompt on this page and change it until it's yours. Borel builds it while you watch.