Timer.Coffee 3.5.3 – 3.6.0 release notes

Hey everyone — I kept shipping updates instead of writing about them again (some things never change). This batch covers a pretty eventful stretch: a December holiday feature, a New Year recap, some bean inventory polish, and a genuinely substantial 3.6.0 with features I've been wanting to build for a while. Let's get into it.

TL;DR

Between 3.5.3 and 3.6.0, Timer.Coffee:

• Added a holiday gift box in December with special discount offers from three specialty coffee partners, then polished it in 3.5.4.

• Shipped a New Year recap — a look back at your 2025 in cups — with two rounds of bug fixes.

• Added a "Set to zero" button on the Bean Details screen to fix the phantom-remaining-weight problem.

• Improved Japanese translation (thanks @llibra!) and added a confirmation before sign-out.

• Launched background brewing, Live Activities (Lock Screen + Dynamic Island), and Pulse — a real-time view of what other users around the world are brewing right now — all in 3.6.0.

• Added a Contact Support button on the About screen, so reaching me is now one tap away.

If you want the full version-by-version breakdown, scroll to the end.

3.6.0: the biggest update in this batch

3.6.0 shipped with four new features at once, which is unusual — normally I spread things out — but they came together at the same time and it felt right to ship them together.

Background brewing

The timer now keeps running accurately when you minimize the app. This has been one of the most-requested things for a long time, and for good reason: long bloom times, busy kitchens, kids asking questions — there are a hundred reasons you might switch apps mid-brew. Now you can, without losing your place.

Live Activities & Live Updates

On supported iPhones, your brew progress now shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island. On supported Android devices, the equivalent arrives as Live Updates — a persistent notification that tracks your brew step in real time without you needing to open the app. Either way, no more unlocking your phone to check which step you're on or how much time is left — a glance is enough.

Pulse

This one is new territory for Timer.Coffee: Pulse is a real-time screen showing what other users around the world are brewing right now. It's a small thing, but seeing that someone in another timezone is mid-pour-over at the same moment as you is a surprisingly warm feeling. Community is one of the things I love most about specialty coffee, and this is a first step toward making that more visible inside the app.

Contact Support

There's now a Support button on the About screen that opens a direct email to me. No more hunting for the address — if something's broken or you have an idea, it's one tap away.

Also in 3.6.0

A couple of bug fixes that had been on my list: built-in recipes were disappearing after sharing when the app was set to a non-English language, and the share button for user-created recipes was becoming unresponsive after dismissing the sign-in dialog. Both are fixed. Plus translation refinements across multiple languages and general design polish.

Bean inventory: the "Set to zero" button (3.5.9)

You probably know the feeling: the bag is physically finished, you've scraped out the last grounds, but the app still shows a few grams "remaining." The math never quite hit zero because real-world brewing is imprecise. 3.5.9 adds a "Set to zero" button on the Bean Details screen so you can close out a finished bag with one tap instead of manually editing the remaining weight.

3.5.9 also brought an improved Japanese translation (thanks @llibra!), a confirmation dialog before signing out (a small but appreciated safety net), under-the-hood stability improvements, and re-added error messages for Google Sign-in that had gone missing.

A holiday gift box (3.5.3 & 3.5.4)

December felt like the right time to do something fun. 3.5.3 tucked a holiday surprise inside the app: a gift box containing special discount offers from three coffee partners — Finca.Shop (specialty Colombian micro-lots with a short, transparent supply chain), Coffee Culture Thailand (fresh-roasted Thai beans delivered direct), and DOU Taiwan Coffee (single-source artisan beans from Taiwan's mountain farms, shipped worldwide). A nice way to discover roasters from corners of the coffee world that don't always get the spotlight.

3.5.4 polished those gift box screens to make them more informative and visually cleaner, and fixed a bug where external links in notifications weren't always opening correctly.

3.5.3 also made bean bag label recognition noticeably faster and more reliable. If you haven't tried scanning a label in a while, give it another go.

Your year with Timer.Coffee (3.5.5, 3.5.7, 3.5.8)

3.5.5, shipped on New Year's Eve, introduced a year-in-review recap — a look at your coffee journey through 2025. Year-in-review features are notoriously tricky because every user's data is different, and this one got two rounds of follow-up fixes: 3.5.7 (January 2) improved Romanian localization (thanks @tacrita0!) and fixed several small recap bugs; 3.5.8 (January 7) resolved a calculation error in the top-percentage stat.

3.5.8 also added Norwegian (Bokmål) as the 21st supported language. Big thank you to @thisislola for the translation — velkommen!

Full version history (3.5.3 → 3.6.0)

• 3.5.3 · Dec 12 – New: holiday surprise gift box. Improved: bean bag label recognition faster and more reliable.

• 3.5.4 · Dec 19 – Improved: Gift Box screens more informative and polished. Bugfix: external links in notifications weren't always opening correctly.

• 3.5.5 · Dec 31 – "Your Year with Timer.Coffee" New Year recap. Happy New Year!

• 3.5.7 · Jan 2 – Improved: Romanian localization (thanks @tacrita0!). Bugfix: fixed several small bugs in New Year recap.

• 3.5.8 · Jan 7 – New: Norwegian (Bokmål) language support (thanks @thisislola! Velkommen!). Bugfix: fixed error with top percentage count in New Year recap.

• 3.5.9 · Feb – New: "Set to zero" button on Bean Details screen for finished bags. Improved: Japanese translation (thanks @llibra!); confirmation before sign-out; under-the-hood stability improvements. Bugfix: re-added missing Google Sign-in error messages.

• 3.6.0 · Mar 6 – New: background brewing; Live Activities on Lock Screen and Dynamic Island (iOS); Live Updates on supported Android devices; Pulse real-time brewing screen; Contact Support button on About screen. Improved: translation refinements across multiple languages; design polish. Bugfixes: built-in recipes disappearing after sharing in non-English language; share button unresponsive after dismissing sign-in dialog.

Thanks as always for brewing with Timer.Coffee and for all the feedback and ideas that keep shaping it. If you have something on your mind — a bug, a wish, a recipe to contribute — GitHub issues and support@timer.coffee are always open (and now so is the new Support button in the app itself).

If you enjoy Timer.Coffee, please consider donating — it's a huge motivation boost and helps cover infrastructure costs. Wishing you a lot of great brews! ☕️