Today is the first time we’ve released Session on major iOS version launch date. This update focuses on iOS features to be more powerful, like the macOS version, and we’re excited to share them with you!

The first feature is the iOS app and web blocker. Now, you can block websites and iOS apps. This is a great feature for people who are easily distracted by social media, messaging, and games. We personally use this feature to block games, shopping apps, and social media.

p.s. Apple respect user privacy by translating user apps & web lists into random text like 52db7ea3-7365-4670-a233-b0e2d07c9d52. This text is generated based on your iCloud account. Session sync this random text between devices. So, as long as:

• your iOS devices are logged in under the same iCloud account
• your iOS devices are logged in on Session with any email (doesn't have to be iCloud)

…you only need to configure the blocked websites / apps once because the web and app blocker under the same iCloud account can understand that random text.

Other than that, we’ve introduced Control Center buttons. You can start, stop, break, increment, and decrement the timer, or abandon the session directly from Control Center.

But the coolest feature, for us, is the introduction of the contextual action button. This is a great addition for iPhones with a physical action button. This single button does different things based on the context. When Session is:

• Not running: It’ll start a session.
• Running: It’ll save the current session and take a break.
• On a break: It’ll save the current break and start a new session.
• Abandoning: It’ll abandon the break or session.

Lastly, live activities are coming to watchOS 11, and the same contextual button works here too. You can start, stop, break, and abandon the session directly from the Apple Watch widget, all based on your session timer state.

There are many other unseen changes, such as a more efficient data synchronization mechanism and refactored code for better maintainability.

Fun fact: this update has been slow to release because we started hiring for the first time, and so far the effort has not been fruitful. We initially hired part-time freelancers, but time was spent educating candidates with no progress being made. We ended up learning that candidates were working full-time jobs, and their employers almost always required overtime. As a result, candidates didn’t have enough time to work with us. Some overestimated their energy level and said that balancing full-time and part-time work was not an issue. They quickly learned that it was, in fact, an issue.

Anyway, we’ve just hired a candidate who we made sure has no full-time job, is focused on iOS development (since macOS developers are rare), and is willing to work on-site initially for quicker knowledge transfer.

Hopefully, this investment will be fruitful, and Session can be developed faster. I, myself (Philip, the only one working here), can’t handle it all alone anymore. There’s too much work!

This update focuses on UX improvement to make Session more enjoyable to use.

Our favourite: as of iOS 17.4—live activities can start automatically whenever macOS / iOS app starts a timer. Your other iOS devices that support live activities will auto-start. Now you'll never miss timer in case you're distracted.

Even better: this update introduces live activities action. You can pause, start, take a break, or abandon Session directly from widget & live activities. In case you accidentally abandoned Session—the action is reversible. Just open the app and press "undo action" to reverse the action.

Apple Shortcuts also have been revamped. Now you can start a Session by using Siri. Example phrases:

• Start recent focus Session,
• Start focus Session,
• Start [your category name] category on Session,
• Stop / Finish Session
• Pause on Session (also work to unpause)
• Take a break on Session
• Abandon Session
• Update Session intention (to change the intention)
• What's current Session?

These phrases are triggerable on Homepod too. Triggering via Siri / Homepod also auto start live activities on all devices. Cool stuff!

Other than Siri side, Apple Shortcut actions are revamped. You can get current session metadata like title, date, and notes. You can also make automation to export your Sessions into another program / custom CSV from shortcut. And manipulate the timer, like increment, abandon, finish Session. This feature enables you to chain Session data / action with another app that you use.

We hope you enjoyed this update as much as we do!

Settings is now redesigned to be more easier to navigate and visually consistent between devices. Not only that, some settings (on Profile feature) now sync between devices!

We also introduced profile: a feature where you can have custom settings depending on category or intention combination you choose.

One great use case: you now can block different website and apps based on intention and category combination you choose. And not only that: you can now have custom website and app to block if you're on break.

This is something that I never thought would be useful until some user told us that they can't stop working—even on break. We have the same habit too, then we tried the feature by ourself. Safe to say it's a game changer. Now we take way more break and ended up more refreshed. :)

One feature request that came from time to time: more distinction when timer has ended. For this, we added custom background sound for Session end and break end.

Instead only having visual distinction when timer has ended, you'll know if the timer has ended just with your ears. To enhance this feature, we also added 2 more background sound that best represent session and break timer has ended.

For macOS, there's now Window tracker: Session now can remind you to start focus based on app name or window title. On Mojave + Ventura, input and button focus management is overhauled. Now it's almost 100% possible to navigate Session just with your keyboard.

And that's just touching the surface. There's a lot more and we exicted to give them to your hands!

Oh, one last thing. We just made a place to handle all feature request. Be sure to upvote or add requests you would love to have here :)

It's been a while since last update. There's one reason for the delay: features in this release needed architectural overhaul. We're glad that part now is done.

First of all: live activities & lockscreen widget. Now you can see your Session status right from your lockscreen, even without having the app open. This is a game changer for me while beta testing it for the past months.

Second: quick notification actions. Some users have been asking for Apple Watch app. Unfortunately users that use iOS app is miniscule—making the investment is not worth it. Fortunately, we've added actionable notifications for common action, like finish session, abandon session, start session, etc. This way, when the timer ends, you don't have to open the app to start a break. This play nicely with live activities too!

Third: Arabic and Hebrew translation. Rejoice for users in the Middle East! Session users have been working hard translating these two new language for you.

Other than that we also made that notes can be copied easily, export to JSON is now possible, and many other smaller bug fixes.

Hope you all enjoying this update!

This update brings you a quality of life improvement so you can set your Session categories and duration just by typing on the intention field.

Intention suggestions can also be personalized to either show all suggestions, just by active category, or none.

Also, this update introduces a possibility to reorder categories (which look simple, but a huge work!) and ability to delete categories.

It took a while to send a new update compared to previous one because I (Philip, the only one who work on Session) suffer from RSI where typing on keyboard hurt my finger.

To mitigate this, I'm:

• Trying to hire someone to help me work on Session, and
• trying to be more healthier so I can continue working on Session

Other than that, we are working on Session 3 that I hope you all will love. It's still a long way to go, but the work we've done here (list reorder, type textfield to change category, etc) is going to be used heavily on that update.

We can't wait for you all to try it!

Few weeks ago, we emailed some users that have made over 500 Sessions in their life about what and how Session could be improved. We heard them loud and clear, and spent our focus in this update.

It's not everything, but we believe it's a huge improvement compared to previous version.

Calendar is revamped. Now you're able to resize calendar duration directly. You can also drag and drop the calendar event from any apps that support drag and drop to timeblock it on Session.

Report page gets a huge overhaul. You can now filter your Session based on category, focus, and whether it has notes or not. Custom date duration is planned to. One regression we made is we ended up removing the daily pulse view. Rest assured, we are going to introduce something similar so you can easily visualize your most productive time.

We also added a new feature to Session, which is to export your Session as CSV. You can now export your Session as CSV. It's useful for professional users that did it to track their working time. Export respect filter that you set too.

And new languages! We introduced Japanese, Korean, Polish, Ukranian, and Russian translation for Session :)

One of the most common request from the survey is Apple Watch introduction. But majority said that it's "nice to have" and "it would be cool to have one". Sadly, there's no plan to introduce it from us. As we (or I, Philip) am working alone—we have to prioritize things that have wide impact. And that's macOS users. iOS users are a minority and we barely made any revenue from that. Working on Apple watch, at this stage, is a distraction.

As of road map, no promise, but here's some sneak peek. We would love to introduce 2 things:

• Simple task list (queue of intentions); so you don't have to write down everything for the day,
• and goals. To motivate you and keep you on track.

Stay tuned!

On this update we focus mainly tweaking the Session timer experience from start to end based on feedback from users. Here are some of them

• Animation timing is accelerated (some complains that it too slow). You can even disable animation now.
• Breathe is adjustable. Between 0-8.
• You can change sound volume and background noise directly on Session.
• User calendar now are colored instead of all gray.
• You can see your Session progress on calendar with double pane mode (good for people with ADHD).
• Schedule next Session inside break (I noticed many user hacked this by writing notes).
• We removed pop ups when Session and break has ended
• Huge performance improvement on syncing
• new languages Traditional Chinese, Spain, French, Italian, Germany, Brazilian Portuguese, and Korean
• and much much more!

We hope this update will reduce frictions and make Session more enjoyable.

Last month we said that Session have one of it's biggest update yet. This one takes it's throne.

First, we revamped Calendar.

• Calendar now render times normally without merging similar Session into one block like it used to be,
• calendar is also swipable. You can easily change dates by swiping (or clicking button) left and right,
• easier to start / save your Session, directly from Calendar,
• Calendar name that has matching Session category will be indicated with small color circle. This helps you start / record Session directly from Calendar
• also, now you can create calendar event directly from Session,

Second update is on Widget. We made a widget for iOS and macOS! This enables you to:

• see your active Session,
• trailing 7, 14, 28 days progress,
• this week / this month progress

…directly from your notification center (on macOS) or homescreen (on iOS).

Third: Shortcut. We added various convenience like pause, start, stop Session. Or even ask Siri how much focus you had today (configurable) on Apple Shortcut for iOS. macOS Shortcut will be introduced on next minor update (2.4.1)! It has been worked on. Just need time for some testing :).

And last but not least. Language support. Session now support (and translated by our amazing user):

• English,
• Simplified Chinese (Tan Ya & Xiuxuan Wang),
• Portugal Portuguese (Jorge Rosado),
• Hungarian (János Kiss),
• Turkish (Mustafa Orhun ERDOGDU),
• Dutch (Mustafa Yücesan), and
• Indonesian (Philip Young)

If you want to see Session in your language, please don't hesitate to contact us! Let's make Session available for everyone.

All in all, I really hope you enjoy this update as much as we do :)

We just released our biggest update yet: detailed reports! With this update, now it's possible for you to see your productivity trends. What time are you more productive? Which time period most distracts you? How long you've worked this month? What's the relative focus time change compared to last period? These questions are now just few clicks away.

These information helps you to know whether you're overworked or underworked.

Other big release: Apple shortcuts now sends data like intention, total focus second, category, notes, etc into Shortcut Input. This feature enable you to forward your notes or productive time to another app for extra flexibility. You can see more details here.

Other than that, there's countless bug fixes done that makes Session more stable than ever.

We don't have public roadmap yet, but next we will introduce new exciting things on iOS land. Exciting!

Ever wondered how long you've focused on specific category like writing, coding, a client, or maybe studying math? Now you can do that in Session. Introducing: category. This feature, while simple, open a lot of possibilities.

As a freelancer, now you can track for how long you're working for each client. For student, you can track how long you're focusing on each subject. Notes and mood help to discover why you're distracted and how things could get better.

Category is cool, but that's not all. You can also assign color for each category to easily distinguish which category you spent on daily on Session log.

There's one downside. In this release, we haven't worked on visualizing analytics. It's still barebone. You can't discover trend, see where you get distracted (and why), on weekly, monthly, or yearly level. We wanted to deliver it in this update, but the category project itself is took much of our time. The good news is, we're going to focus on that on next update.

Last but not least, we made prototype for Chrome extension! What it does: show Session button on your favorite productivity web app. Clicking the button will automatically start Session and auto populate your intention. We have supported 3 major app: Todoist, Trello, and Github.

Try to install the Chrome extension, hover on Todoist task / Trello card. Session button will show. Click it to start your Session. Intentional focusing has never been easier.

All in all, we're very exited to see creative ways you're going to use Session. Enjoy!

Session button chrome extension can be downloaded from here

2 new features and stability improvement. Session now can automatically mute Slack channel while you started working and on rest. The mute will expire after you have finished working (go to main page).

The other big feature is URL scheme. You can see the documentation here. URL scheme is a simple but powerful way to programatically navigate Session with just a link.

As you can probably tell, We are very excited. We have worked hard to make every inch of Session experience better.

First of all, Double pane mode. Now Session shows menu contextually, based on what you need at the moment. Planning what to work on and how long? Calendar view. Currently working? A notes view with some recent notes to keep you updated. Taking a rest? Another calendar view to see how your days went by in general.

Another big addition: calendar integration. Now you can see your meetings and calendar events right inside Session. You can also see your past Sessions on Apple calendar. Huge for monitoring own self.

Other than that, there's a lot of optimization and bug fixes here and there.

On next and following updates, we are going to focus on projects feature and better analytics. For now, stay productive and enjoy what Session offers!

Our main goal is always to find way how to keep us stay productive and in the zone. It's not an easy task. We spent a lot of time thinking on how Session can help you achieve this. That's why this version is a big deal for us.

First: we introduced White noise. It seems trivial: some user use their own music to stay focused. Why waste unnecessary resources to introduce built in white noise? Honestly, white noise is never on our radar. It's "useless". But we decided to open our mind and try working with white noise. Immediately, we found immediate benefit.

White noise gives you presence. It lets you know what "stage" you're currently in. By default, we used ticking clock to wired you in "focus" phase. On "break" phase, we used an ocean waves. These sound distinction will help you transition between focus and break mode—just like how "breathe" help you transition from "planning what to work on" to "focus.

If you used to work with music, try white noise for a few Session. Let us know what your thoughts about it.

Another feature we're going to introduce is Automation.

Imagine having Do Not Disturb turned on while working on Session, and have it turned off while you've stopped working. What about force close distracting application like Slack and other messaging system? Play music? Change bulb color? Now you can.

This feature also align with this update theme: presence. It helps you wired in and know what "stage" you're currently in.

On Mac, you can use AppleScript. On iOS, you can use Apple Shortcut. We'll cut it short here as we've made an tutorial for you to get the most out of Session

You can learn how to make the most out of Session here And about automation here here.

Yes. You've read the title right. Now Session sync Session state between all devices! Now you can start on your Mac, end it, on a long break, and get notified when your break has ended from your phone. This is a game changer as you can stay focused, reminded to take necessary break, and get notified wherever you are.

We also introduced simplified Session experience in general. Take a peek below for more details :)

This is a huge and exciting update. We have made every inch of Session's core experience to be better. To start: now users can move the timer hand clockwise for Session, and counterclockwise for Rest. This greatly improve Session experience. If you had a bad day and wanted to get quick win, start focusing just for a short time. Or go deep with longer interval.

Scrubbing is great, but it's just the beginning. We now let's you start Session without any task and make the task name editable on working mode. This gives you huge flexibility as you can start right away and include "what I should work on 🤔" as part ot the current Session.

One of the biggest complain in reflection view: many user find that they often forget to close it. Worry no more. If there's no activity on Reflection for 30 second, Session will auto continue it and record your Session.

Other than that, huge improvement on all part of the apps! Notable list: website allow list and deny list, floating window capability, preference page architecture redesign, and many more.

On next update, we are going to focus on something special: start on Mac, continue on iOS. Stay tuned :)

This version enhances lots of things from Session core experience. Redesigned Session flow, Session duration on macOS menu bar, partial keyboard shortcut (others are coming!), auto short and long break, hide Session notification if time is overflowed, and some more!

Session has been made to run more efficient. This update has significant performance improvement. Sync has been made to be more reliable too.

On personal news, our commitment for part-time job has just ended, so we can focus 100% on Session in the coming months! We're excited to help you all stay focused and make session better for you 🤩

This version releases part 1 improvement for Session core experience. The update is split into two-part because of BigSur release. The new MacOS update didn't run Session correctly, so we focused to do quick bug fixes and crashes in this update.

Another notable part of this update: App Blocker. App Blocker augments Website blocker, and it's a great way to further block distractions like social media, messaging, and games app. This helps you be more mindful more focused on the task you have at hand.

Website blocker has new browsers support: Microsoft Edge, Brave, Chromium, and also Opera browser.

We also added granular Session duration control (most requested), and hide dock icon.

From visual part, accessibility is improved. Now Session renders correctly on high contrast mode.

This version introduces data export and daily report—a long requested feature from users. With daily report, Session will show you a page with how you are doing yesterday. It's a good way to start your day, knowing what you progress what you have made the day before.

Other big changes is data export. Pro user now can export data in CSV format. Some user asked this feature to further process their data. Here it is!

We also have big news coming at the end of October. Stay tuned!

This update's goal is to serve a future groundwork for next version—daily and weekly reporting. To make that possible, we introduce a new data point: mood. Mood could be selected on reflection after every session has ended.

Mood, while simple, adds an important data point. For example, you can look at your data, find patterns on days when you got distracted a lot, and compare it to your notes and see what triggers them.

Other than that, we also added improvements such as volume adjustment (important for headphone users), enforcable theming, and productivity pulse.

This update excites us! We can't wait to improve your Session experience and help you get more focused and reflective.