For someone like me who's checking the news every couple of minutes, it's a big plus. You'll have to restart your session by going into the app (you can customize this so that there's a 30 second leeway or your task is never interrupted). Shift away from the app, and it will pause your task and send you a notification. There's no naming of your current tasks, like there is with Tomato Timer, but Plantie does have an important feature that the first two on this list don't. Maintain a streak and you'll get coins for your effort that can be used to buy additional types of trees. Break the chain and your fruit goes away. A fun take on the standard timer app where your efficiency progress is represented by fruit growing on a little tree. So instead I downloaded the similar-looking Plantie. The third tomato timer app in the App Store is Flora, which looks great, but requires that you sign in with Facebook to use it. If messing with your phone is what's destroying your efficiency, you'll need to look elsewhere. I like Focus Keeper a lot, but the one thing it doesn't do is automatically stop the timer when you leave the app. Paying for the app will also unlock a full 30 days worth of efficiency charts (you only get 3 days in the basic app).

If you want to change the background color, set different goals, or customize the sounds you can 'Go Pro' for $1.99. It does this again for your long break (this time adding a nice soothing beach sound). Once your current session is up, it will prompt you to start your break, automatically setting a 5-minute timer, changing the background color and adding a ticking sound (which actually stresses me out, luckily you can disable it).

If you leave the app, you can still see what minute you're on by checking the count on the badge notification. Click the start button and it will start counting down, keeping track of what round you're on as well as your goal for the session. You can manually drag the timer bar back and forth to set a longer or shorter session. Once you open the app, the cheery red background and horizontal timer striations makes its purpose clear.

The number one app on the list, Focus Keeper, is also the most true to the original concept of the pomodoro timer.

Pomodoro watch app