Compared · Boxing Timer Pro Round Timer

A round timer that cannot ask you to subscribe later

Boxing Timer Pro has been on the App Store since May 2011. It holds 6,749 ratings and a 4.85 average, and it is genuinely good at what it does. It also has 82 one-star reviews out of the 215 we read, and they all land on the same three versions: the ones where an app people had bought outright became a subscription.

Listing facts read 16 September 2026 · 215 reviews read 5 September 2026

What it looks like when a paid app turns

These are not new customers complaining about a price. They are the oldest customers it has, and most of them say so in the first sentence:

“I purchased the ‘pro’ version of this app when it was a one time purchase. I'm fine with the app going to subscription based for any new comers, but when you sell something as a pay once and it's yours then change the deal it smacks of a real lack of integrity and there are too many other options.”

1★ · United States · v3.0.9

“I paid for this app, and got a lot of use out of it. Since then they've updated it so that you can't run the timer. Instead you get a nag screen trying to get you to subscribe. Subscribe to what? It's a glorified stopwatch.”

1★ · United States · v3.0.4

“I purchased boxing timer pro a few years back which was a one time purchase — own it for life, recently it updated and now it asks me to purchase a subscription for $9.99/year and it won't let me start any timer.”

1★ · United States · v3.0.4

The same shape, smaller, is in PunchLab's reviews and in Boxing Coach Workout Timer's. Read across all 2,327 reviews in the corpus, 175 mention price and 118 of those are negative; of 237 one-star reviews, 148 are about money. It is the first cause of a one-star review in this category and it is not close.

And the lesson inside it is sharper than “people don't like paying”. What produces the wave is not charging. It is taking back what was already given.

What that means here

Combo Caller has no in-app purchase, no subscription, no account and no trial. Not as a launch promotion — there is no purchasing code in the app at all, which is why there is nothing to restore and no paywall that can appear in an update.

If it is ever monetised, the line is drawn where these reviews drew it: what is free today stays free for whoever already has it, and the only thing that could be sold is something that does not exist yet. That is worth writing on a public page because it is the kind of promise that is only worth anything when it is checkable later.

What you get instead of a timer

The home screen: the list of programs and the three dials. — Three of the thirty programs are a clock and nothing else.
The other twenty-seven call.

A round timer is a solved problem, and Boxing Timer Pro solved it fifteen years ago. The question is what a phone can do during the round rather than around it.

A clock, if that is what you want

Three of the thirty programs are a round clock and nothing else: rounds, rest, the bell, the last ten seconds on the clapper.
Five clapper sounds, taken from what actually gets used at ringside.
The round and the clock on the lock screen, with pause and skip.

Or a coach, if you want one

Eighty-nine combinations called out loud, in words, timed from what each one costs to throw.
Twenty-seven programs that call, each one built on a named source.
A program that repeats one combination for about a minute, with a three-call countdown before it moves on.
Fifteen weeks of history and a CSV of the lot.

Boxing Timer Pro has not been installed and run for this page. Its listing was read on 16 September 2026 and its reviews on 5 September 2026.

Straight answers

Before you switch

Is Combo Caller a plain round timer too?

It can be. Three of the thirty programs are a clock and nothing else: rounds, rest, the bell and the last-ten clapper, with no voice calling anything. The other twenty-seven call combinations or mark an interval and leave the strike to you. So yes, it replaces a round timer, and it is not only a round timer.

Can the developer add a subscription later?

Anything is possible in a future version, so the useful answer is the rule rather than the promise: what is free today stays free for whoever already has it, and anything sold would have to be something that does not exist yet. That line is written down because the reviews on this page are what happens when it is crossed. Right now there is no in-app purchase of any kind in the app, and nothing to restore.

Does it work offline?

Entirely. There is no network code in it at all — no account, no sync, no analytics, no crash reporter. The voice pack is inside the app, so aeroplane mode changes nothing. That is also why it is 18 MB and why nothing you do in it can leave the phone: there is nowhere for it to go.

Will it run on an older iPhone?

It needs iOS 16.4, which is an iPhone 8 and later. Boxing Timer Pro now requires iOS 17.0, and three of the four competitors measured on 14 September ask for iOS 17 or better. The floor here is deliberate.