Apple’s timer feature on iOS and watchOS is convenient for single uses especially when set using Siri. There are a few basic limitations, however, that could be addressed to make timers much more useful. Support for setting multiple timers, adding labels to identify timers, Continuity between devices, and support for the Mac are all low hanging fruit for timers.

A list of the best free and paid time management software available for Mac, PC and mobile (updated frequently). You can have multiple timers, stopwatch and countdown modes and gestures and sounds. I felt it fine to include this. ManicTime is a no-frills timer, and allows you to view interesting charts about your time tracked.

Time Machine is more than just backup software for your Mac. It’s also an archival tool. It keeps moments in time for you to look back on, so you can recover deleted or missing files or even revert to older versions of files you’ve worked on. A few of the best time tracking apps have plenty of options to help guide you through these questions and others. Time tracking apps can have more functionality, too. Some are adept at handling multiple currencies, for example.

I use timers the most when preparing a meal in the kitchen. Setting a timer with my voice by saying ‘Hey Siri, set a 60 minute timer’ to my Apple Watch or iPhone is really convenient and hands-free. My microwave and stove both have timers, too, but I prefer having the timer go off on my wrist if I step out of the kitchen and not having to fiddle with the fiddly appliances interface.

It’s common to need to set multiple timers for different foods when preparing a meal, however, and this is where Apple’s timers hit a limit. One timer per device.

I usually have my iPhone and Apple Watch in the kitchen so that’s two timers plus the two timers on the appliances makes four, but ideally each timer could be running on the same device. The stove and microwave are basic appliances and more limited than a dedicated computer, but managing multiple timers seems like the sort of thing that an iPhone or Apple Watch could handle.

The best way to manage multiple timers is probably with a text label. For example, you could have your 60 minute lasagna timer then add a 15 minute mixed vegetables timer along with a 5 minute bread timer.

Glance at the timer to visually identify progress on each session at the same time, or say ‘Hey Siri, check lasagna timer’ to use voice to check specific progress hands-free.

Timer labels could even be useful for individual sessions. If you’ve ever had a timer go off and forget exactly what you were timing, labels could provide more context.

If you do use multiple devices like iPhone and iPad, timers could ideally alert you on nearby devices using the same iCloud account as a Continuity feature. If you set a timer on your iPhone, it could go off on your iPad as well. Proximity could prevent the iPad from alerting if it’s not nearby and instead back at the office too.

Timers set on iPhone already enjoy this benefit on Apple Watch since the Apple Watch requires the iPhone to work. This means you can set a timer on your iPhone and a timer on your Apple Watch and be alerted to both on your Apple Watch for now. In the future, however, Apple Watch will ideally be more independent from iPhone at which point the Continuity feature would be necessary.

Finally, the Mac needs timer support. This is a glaring omission now that macOS includes Siri. Ask Siri to set a 5 minute timer and it will openly acknowledge that it can’t and recommend creating a reminder for 5 minutes from now instead.

Reminders are cross-device and support labels and multiple sessions, but you can’t check time remaining from Reminders and they’re more cumbersome than straightforward timers.

I suppose Apple could intentionally keep timers off the Mac and only on iOS and watchOS as a solution for mobile contexts, but I can imagine scenarios that don’t involve preparing a meal where I might want a countdown timer on my Mac. At the very least, it would make Siri on the Mac a little more useful.

Perhaps we could see some or all of these changes next week at WWDC as part of iOS 11, watchOS 4, and macOS 10.13. Enhancing timers with more features would certainly be a useful trick for the rumored ‘Siri Speaker’ Amazon Echo competitor.

Top image via Cookie Monster iPhone 6s ad

At some point in the not-too-distant future, most Macs—especially those in business and educational environments—will be running multiple operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. The question is, will the multiple-OS tools built into OS X be enough for you?

The virtues of virtualization

Virtual machine technology, or virtualization, enables the Mac to run any application, regardless of the operating system for which that app was written. It performs this trick by running one or more operating systems, each in its own “virtual machine.”

For most Mac users, virtualization has meant “running Windows software on a Mac.” Back in the 1980s, SoftPC, from Insignia Solutions, enabled Mac users to run DOS and Windows on 680X0 Macs, by emulating an Intel processor. Later, Virtual PC took over and allowed users to run multiple instances of Windows at the same time on one Mac.

Fast-forward to 2006, when Apple introduced its Intel-powered Macs. Because there was a real Intel processor inside these Macs, the need to emulate this kind of processor was gone. As a result, guest operating systems could run dramatically faster on a Mac. Apple took advantage of this by releasing a beta version of its Boot Camp software, which lets you install a copy of Windows on your Mac and then choose which OS—Windows or OS X—you want to use at startup.

Photo by Peter Belanger, contributing photographer.

Timer Program Free

The obvious flaw in Boot Camp’s design is that it’s not, in fact, running multiple operating systems: it lets you run only one at a time. You have to reboot your Mac if you want to use Windows. If you’re a gamer, that’s probably fine. But if you’re a businessperson who wants to pop into a Windows app for a second and then pop back out to OS X, or if you want to copy and paste data from a Windows app into OS X, Boot Camp is not the solution for you.

Parallels Desktop, which also came out in 2006, seems like the better answer. Unlike Boot Camp, it lets you run Windows apps in a window within OS X; you can then switch between the two operating systems quickly and easily. Like Virtual PC, Parallels Desktop lets you run multiple operating systems at the same time, so if you need to run, say, Linux as well as Windows while you’re running OS X, you can.

In 2007, Mac users will get an even better option. VMware is a veteran provider of virtualization software for other platforms. In late 2006, it was due to release a beta version of its first virtual machine product for the Mac. Like Virtual PC and Parallels Desktop, VMware’s software will let Intel-based Macs run multiple instances of Windows, Linux, NetWare, and Solaris as virtual machines at the same time they run Mac OS X.

Multiple Timer App

But VMware’s software will do more than just run another OS on the Mac: it’ll also support virtual appliances —prepackaged virtual machines that come with applications and user settings already installed and configured. Using it, you could, for example, download an appliance that would let you put a ready-to-run Oracle software installation on your Mac. What might have once taken two days of configuration hassles will become a small matter of dragging and dropping a file.

Buying advice

Free Timer For Mac

Although Apple will bundle Boot Camp with Leopard, that won’t give OS X users anything they can’t get now with a simple download. And, as far as we know now, Boot Camp still won’t be able to run multiple operating systems at the same time. For a truly multi-OS Mac, the best Mac option for now remains Parallels Desktop. But keep an eye out for VMware for Mac—it could change the game.

[ John Rizzo is the publisher ofMacWindows.com.]