Sundial: Time Marks

Hi Fazier! I'm the solo developer. The app was almost called SUISHI, the romanization of its Chinese name 岁时. Then I noticed that English readers see "sushi", so it became Sundial. 岁 originally meant Jupiter: ancient astronomers counted years by where it stood in the sky. A year was first something you saw, not something you counted. That is what the app tries to do: put the day, the year and your life on your Home Screen as marks you can see at a glance. Two small things I spent too long on: the icon (my first version turned out to share all three strongest traits with a 2015 app, so I rebuilt it) and the typeface (a trimmed Source Han Serif with tabular figures, so widget percentages stop jiggling). I'd love to hear which style you would keep on your Home Screen.

The single vermilion mark for now is a lovely detail, the one thing your eye lands on. Does the lifetime grid let you mark a few dates inside it, like when you moved or started a job? A grid you can annotate would turn it from a memento mori into something closer to a diary.

The idea of ink for the past, a single vermilion mark for now and pale grey for what's ahead is a lovely way to show time at a glance. With the lifetime grid drawn from a birthday, do you let people choose an expected lifespan, and can the Lock Screen widget stay legible when the 26 styles get dense, like the pine trees?

Ver good for me, I like it and suggested

The lifetime grid drawn from your birthday is a striking idea. Does the lunar-year cycle follow the actual lunisolar calendar, and could widgets show a custom countdown label alongside the marks?

Seeing the year as marks instead of a percentage changes how it feels. 83% sounds fine, but a row that's almost all ink doesn't. Does the lunar year widget follow the Chinese calendar only, or could it use other lunar calendars, like the Islamic one? That could make it useful to a lot more people.

nice as home screen, I validate it

Showing the day, year and whole life as quiet rows of ink marks on the Home Screen is a lovely, calm way to visualize time. Keeping the data on-device and private in iCloud with no accounts is a great touch.

The 岁时 story is a lovely anchor for the whole app: time you see rather than count. The single vermilion mark for "now" is a strong choice too, it gives the eye one place to land. Is the lifetime grid based on a fixed life expectancy, or can you set your own end date? I'd also love a monochrome style that matches iOS tinted widgets.

Love the story behind the name, and one vermilion mark for now is a smart single accent. Does the lunar year cycle follow Chinese calendar dates automatically, and can the lifetime grid use a custom span instead of a default life expectancy?

I like the lifetime grid drawn from the birthday and the single vermilion mark for "now", since it makes the idea readable at a glance on the Lock Screen. Are there plans for an Apple Watch complication or StandBy mode view, where this kind of quiet glanceable design would fit well?

Showing time as marks rather than a percentage feels calmer and easier to grasp at a glance, especially on a Lock Screen widget. The lifetime grid drawn from a birthday is the most distinctive part, and having seven cycles from a day up to a lunar year gives it more depth than a simple countdown app. Keeping everything on-device and in private iCloud also fits the quiet design. It would be interesting to see whether the countdown and count-up dates can share the same widget style without breaking that minimal look.

This looks really solid. I'm curious about the technical stack behind it—did you build this natively or use a web wrapper? Also, how does it handle performance on older machines? Nice work!

The idea of showing the year and a whole lifetime as quiet ink marks on the Lock Screen is lovely, and the single vermilion mark for now is a great touch. Are the 26 styles all available in the widgets, or do some only work in the app?

Including the lunar year as one of the cycles is a lovely touch, and it's rare in apps like this. Could countdowns also be set by lunar date? Things like the Mid-Autumn Festival or a family member's lunar birthday move every year on the Gregorian calendar, so a countdown that recalculates itself each year would fit the app's idea of seeing time at a glance.

good work keep it up

Showing the week and month as marks next to the year is what makes this work for me. A percentage tells you the number, but a half-filled row of ink actually feels like time passing. I build browser timers, and the hardest part there is the same as yours: keeping a countdown calm instead of stressful. Does the countdown widget also switch to the vermilion 'now' mark on the day itself, or does it simply finish?