Simple App Alternative: When You Want a Fasting Timer, Not an AI Coach

Simple is one of the largest apps in this category -- roughly 397,000 App Store ratings at 4.7 stars -- and it has moved decisively in one direction: it is now called "Simple: AI Weight Loss Coach". The fasting timer is still there, but the product it sells is a coach you talk to.

For some people that is exactly right. For others it is the reason they start looking for something else. This is a way to work out which group you are in before you pay, and to be transparent: we make FastBreak, one of the apps you might consider, so we will show how it answers each point.

The honest question: will you talk to it?

AI coaching in a health app lives or dies on one behaviour -- whether you open a chat and type. Most people try it for a week, find that the answers are reasonable but general, and stop. The subscription continues.

Before you commit, look at your own history with the feature. Have you sustained a conversation with a chat assistant about your habits for more than two weeks? If not, you are not buying a coach; you are buying a timer at coach prices.

FastBreak has an AI coach too, and we are deliberate about it: it is one part of the app, not the product, and the fasting timer works completely without it. Being straight about how it works -- the coach sends your question to our server, which calls a language model, so it is not on-device. If you never open the coach, nothing is sent and nothing about the app breaks or nags.

What you give up for a cloud coach

A coach that knows your history needs your history. That means an account, and it means your weight, eating patterns and goals live on a server.

That is a fair trade if you use the coaching. It is a bad trade if you do not, because you have handed over health data and taken on an account that can fail. The recurring pain in this whole category is not bad advice -- it is people locked out of years of history by a login problem after a redesign.

Ask two things:

Does the core timer work without an account? If a fasting timer requires registration, ask what the server is for.
Where does the history live? On-device with your own iCloud backup means the company can disappear and your streaks survive.

FastBreak has no registration at all -- no email, no password. Your history lives on the device and backs up through your own iCloud, and also to our server against an anonymous id so a new phone can restore it. That id is not linked to your name or email, and Settings has a delete-everything button that clears both.

Check where the payment comes from

Simple, like most apps that scale through paid ads, runs a web onboarding quiz -- you answer questions on a website and can pay there, before installing anything. A card payment made on a website is not an App Store subscription. It will not appear in your iPhone's subscription list, and you cannot cancel it in Settings.

If you subscribe, prefer the in-app route so Apple handles the billing. Then cancellation is two taps in Settings → your name → Subscriptions and no one can charge you afterwards.

Everything in FastBreak is billed by Apple. There is no web checkout.

Match the tool to the actual problem

It is worth being precise about what is failing, because the apps solve different problems:

"I forget when my window closes." You need a timer with a good widget, a Live Activity and a watch face. Coaching is irrelevant.
"I know what to do and do not do it." You need a streak you do not want to break, and prompts you can live with. Still not coaching.
"I do not know what to eat, and I want to ask." Now a coach earns its price.
"I want calories and macros as well as fasting." Check the food logging specifically -- how fast it is to log a meal is the whole feature.

Most people looking for a Simple alternative are in the first two groups and have been paying for the fourth.

Before you switch, export

Whatever you move to, take your history with you. Export from the old app first, then confirm the new one can read it -- FastBreak imports CSV and JSON via Settings → Import fasting history, and merges completed fasts without touching what you have already logged.

The bottom line

Simple is a good product aimed at people who want to be coached. If you have paid for it for three months and never opened the chat, that is the answer -- you wanted a fasting timer, and a fasting timer should be free, quiet, and yours.

Check whether the core works without an account, check who charges you, and export before you leave.