Timely is a time and alarm app you'll enjoy every second of using

If there was a beauty contest for alarm/clock apps, Timely would have won Mr/Mrs Universe. If Apple had invented it for iOS 8, Timely's keynote at WWDC would have sounded like "great, really awesome, gorgeous, best ever" for 10 minutes straight. If it was your wife, you'd lock her in a tower. It's that good-looking, but by miracle of competent design, Timely isn't style over substance. It's a time app you can actually use while enjoying every second of it. Not that its ridiculously pretty visuals would make waking up in the morning any more pleasant, but we're afraid there's no app for that.

So, what is it about Timely that got us, like, soooo into it? Open the app, and you will be welcomed by its three panels. The center panel is a good old-fashioned clock. It overlays the time in hours, minutes, and seconds, along with the date on a colorful, dynamic background. That's all there's to it - or is it? Thanks to Timely's customization options, you can make this, and the other two panels truly your own. You can select a new watch-face and choose a background theme from a wide selection. Each theme looks great thanks to vivid colors and smart use of translucency. Some of them resemble the colors of a well-prepared cocktail, while others look ever-so psychedelic. Either way, you'll struggle to find a look you definitely dislike.

What about Timely's other panels? On the left is the alarm. Simply swipe from the left, move the selector to your desired time of the day, and ogle its smooth, effortless movement. You'll notice that the hours are available only in 30 minute intervals, but don't worry - simply tap the hour twice, and you'll be able to fine-tune the digits. After setting an alarm, you can change its sound and add a "challenge" to it in case you are the extra-sleepy type - like shaking your phone, or solving a puzzle to stop it from ringing. The built-in sounds are pretty good, but surely there's no such thing as a pleasing alarm sound - they are meant to take you out of your warm bed, not have you laying there in peace and listening to birds chirping, or whatever.

Finally, the third panel is a stopwatch/timer combo. You choose between the two by literally flipping the watchface - how cool is that? Both of them look sleek and futuristic, and are very simple to use.

Let's not forget the Settings menu. It gives you control over the alarm fade-in length, snooze duration, graphics effects intensity and some other tweaks. Like we said, Timely is an app to make your own. Go ahead and try the free version from Google Play.