TheWait is now Soon. Why we rebuilt and rebranded

The app started as a simple countdown. You pinned an event and watched the days tick down, and that was it. Over a year it grew widgets, themes, calendar import, and photo backgrounds. The name kept holding it back.

In April 2026 I rebuilt the app from scratch and renamed it Soon., with a new name, a new icon, and a new home.

Why rename it to Soon.?

The old name described the app literally. You wait, and the app counts down.

That framing gets the feeling wrong. People use countdown apps because they’re looking forward to something. Waiting is passive and carries delay, patience, and endurance with it. Anticipation is active: you enjoy the thing a little before it arrives. When you’re counting down to a trip, a wedding, a birth, or a milestone, part of you is already there.

Soon. says that better. The period at the end is deliberate, because it makes the name a full sentence: the thing you’re looking forward to isn’t far off.

What the rebuild added

The whole app was rebuilt from scratch. New additions include:

• Plan mode. Every countdown can have a checklist and a timeline of milestones. Soon. suggests a starter plan for the kind of event: a trip, a wedding, a birthday, an exam, a concert, and more. You don’t have to write the checklist yourself, and Plan mode is free. How Plan mode builds a checklist explains the design.

• Widgets where you already look. Home Screen, Lock Screen, and StandBy widgets, from a single day count to a ring and a timeline. Today there are 26. The day you’re most looking forward to can sit on the screens you already check.

• Natural-language search. Type “trip in july”, “birthdays this year”, or “last summer” and Soon. finds the moments and memories you mean. Search runs on your iPhone.

• Memories. When a day has passed, you can keep it as a Memory that counts the days since. With Premium, On This Day sends a reminder on its anniversary each year.

What stayed the same

• Private by default. Soon. has no ads, tracking, or account. Your moments stay on your iPhone and, if you turn on iCloud sync, in your own private iCloud.

• A one-time purchase option. Premium is $12.99 once for Lifetime, or $1.99 a month or $9.99 a year, each starting with a 7-day free trial.

• Built by one person. Same developer, same catalogue, same principles. Soon. is part of the Lagerland Apps family of apps.

Why indie studios should rename when it matters

Renaming an app is frightening. App Store rankings reset, existing users get confused, and some coverage stays attached to the old name. I resisted doing it for a year.

A wrong name costs you every day, though. Everyone who sees the app sees the wrong framing, every conversation starts with an explanation, and every review mentions how odd the name is. Eventually the cost of keeping it is higher than the cost of changing it, and most of the cost of changing it is nerve.

For a countdown app, where the whole point is moments worth waiting for, Soon. is the better name. It was worth the pain.

If you’re building something and the name is slightly wrong, take this as permission to change it.

Soon. is available on the App Store for iPhone. It is free for up to 5 moments, with no time limit. Premium adds unlimited moments, reminders, the weather forecast, daily notes, and repeating moments.