When Apple crowned Tiimo its iPhone App of the Year, the pick felt intentionally low-key: not a blockbuster game or a photo juggernaut, but a visual planner built around an AI assistant meant to help people actually get things done.
Tiimo started in Copenhagen as a research project for neurodivergent teens and has evolved into a colorful, emoji‑friendly planner that blends reminders, timers and an AI chat interface. Apple’s editors described it as offering "a visual planner and thoughtfully implemented AI that turns aspirations into actionable next steps," in their official announcement of the 2025 App Store Awards. You can read Apple’s full release on the Apple newsroom.
What Tiimo actually does
Open the app and it looks like a simple blank planner — then the AI prompts you. In practice the assistant can break a vague request (“plan my week”) into timed tasks, estimate how long steps might take, slot items into morning/day/evening buckets, and pin reminders to your lock screen. It pairs chores and routines with themed emojis, offers focus timers and even background audio while you work. The core app is free; a premium tier runs about $10 a month.
A Business Insider reporter who used Tiimo for 48 hours said the chatbot was conversational, handled scheduling prompts well, generated useful reminders (including medication alerts) and nudged them toward small daily wins. The app’s origin — founded by Melissa Würtz Azari and Helene Lassen Nørlem and seeded in research on ADHD and autism — helps explain why its design favors visual cues and predictable structure over dense checklists.
Not just a one-off: AI across Apple’s winners
Tiimo’s win also underscores how AI is creeping into mainstream apps without always being branded as the headline feature. Apple’s 2025 winners included other tools that lean on machine learning: Detail’s Auto Edit on iPad automates video cuts and captions, StoryGraph personalizes book recommendations with ML, Be My Eyes uses AI to describe visuals for blind users, and Strava turns workout data into insights for wearables. TechCrunch rounded up those same threads when it covered the awards, noting how Apple’s picks leaned into AI-assisted convenience and accessibility.
This is part of a broader shift toward assistants that act on your behalf — whether that’s scheduling your day or turning raw footage into a finished clip. It’s also why conversations about platform AI partnerships matter: Apple recently signaled plans to use external models to enhance Siri, a move that mirrors how third‑party apps are embedding specialized AI to solve narrow, practical problems. See the context on Apple’s decision to work with Google’s Gemini model for next‑gen Siri in our coverage of that development here. And for a sense of how conversational copilots are spreading into navigation and everyday tools, compare that to Google’s push with Gemini in Maps here.
Why Apple might have picked Tiimo
There are a few sensible reasons. First, Tiimo slots neatly into Apple’s recent focus on accessibility and user-centric design: it’s explicitly pitched at neurodivergent users and people who benefit from visual routines. Second, it’s practical rather than flashy — Apple often rewards design that quietly improves daily life. And third, it demonstrates restraint in AI: Tiimo’s assistant doesn’t promise general intelligence; it helps plan, time and remind.
The win also had a measurable impact in the App Store: Tiimo climbed on the charts after the award, proof that Apple’s editorial spotlight still moves downloads.
A small cultural shift
Apple’s App Store Awards also recognized titles across devices — Pokémon TCG Pocket won iPhone Game of the Year, DREDGE took iPad Game of the Year, and titles like Essayist and Explore POV were honored on Mac and Vision Pro respectively. On the wearables side, Strava was Apple Watch app of the year, a reminder that these assistant-like features increasingly live on small screens as well as phones. If you’re shopping for a wearable to run habit and activity apps, the Apple Watch remains the dominant hardware choice for that ecosystem.
For home entertainment, Apple’s editors selected HBO Max as the Apple TV app of the year, another nod to mainstream polish in a crowded streaming field — the app is available on Apple TV hardware.
So what changes?
Not much will change overnight for most users. But Tiimo’s selection signals a subtle reorientation: AI that helps with the small, repeated frictions of everyday life — remembering meds, timing chores, breaking down tasks — is now editorially celebrated alongside big creative tools and games. That matters because it steers developer attention and investment toward assistive, practical experiences rather than headline-grabbing gimmicks.
If you struggle with routine or are curious about a different kind of assistant, Tiimo is worth a try. It won’t rewrite productivity theory, but it might stop you from missing dinner or forgetting the pills on a busy Tuesday. And at a moment when AI is being woven into everything from video editors to navigation, that modest form of help is suddenly an easy thing to admire.