Looking for a Simple App Alternative? Start With What You Actually Want

Quick answer: Simple is no longer a fasting app. Its App Store listing is now "Simple: AI Weight Loss Coach," built around an AI coach called Avo and photo-based food feedback. Fasting is still in there, but it is one feature inside a coaching product. If you liked Simple for the fasting timer and want that back on its own, you want a different category of app — ours is one of them, and we say so plainly below.

Disclosure: Fasted is our app. Every claim about Simple below comes from Simple's own App Store listing, Google Play listing, or website, checked on 5 August 2026 and cited at the end. Store facts change; verify before you pay.

If you downloaded Simple a few years ago for intermittent fasting and opened it recently to find an AI coach asking about your Pilates preferences, you are not imagining it. The product moved.

That is not a scandal — apps are allowed to grow. But it does mean "Simple alternative" is an ambiguous search. You could be looking for a different AI coach, or you could be looking for the fasting timer Simple used to be. Those lead to opposite recommendations.

What Simple Is Today

The App Store listing reads "Simple: AI Weight Loss Coach", subtitle "Build a Healthy Body for Life," published by AM APPS LTD. The word "fasting" is not in the title anymore.

The description sets out the pitch in its own words: "Simple helps you lose weight with personalized plans, real-time nutrition analysis, on-demand coaching, and tailored workouts — without calorie counting or extreme restrictions." It describes an in-app coach, "Avo™," and a camera feature, Avo Vision, that reads a photo of a meal or a menu and gives feedback. Simple's own site adds "Pilates, yoga, and walking plans" and "Nutrition Scores for the meals you log."

Fasting has not disappeared. Simple's site still talks about helping people "safely intermittent fast" and about logging fasting hours. It is just no longer the center of the app.

Here is how the two listings compare, checked 5 August 2026:

Two of those rows favor Simple by a wide margin, and we are not going to bury them: it has a watch app and 392,000 ratings. If you need either, stop reading and keep Simple.

Five Questions Worth Answering Before You Switch

1. Was the coach the point, or the timer?

Be honest about which part you used. If you opened Simple to ask Avo about a meal, an app with no coach will feel empty. If you opened it to press start on a 16:8 window and everything else was noise you scrolled past, a coaching app is charging you for surface area you never touch.

There is no right answer. There is only which one describes your last month.

2. Do you want to photograph your food?

Photo-based food feedback is Simple's signature feature and it works for a lot of people. It also requires you to take the photo. Every food-logging feature ever built has the same failure mode: the week you stop logging is the week the app stops being useful, and for most people that week arrives.

Apps that do not ask you to log food cannot fail that way. They also cannot tell you anything about what you ate. Pick your trade.

3. Does the paid tier line up with what you use?

Simple's listing shows seven separate in-app purchases across two tier names — Simple Pro and Simple Premium — plus a Workbooks Bundle. Simple's own site says prices "vary based on the subscription length you choose." That is a lot of shapes, and it is worth spending two minutes on the listing to see which one you would actually land on.

If subscriptions in general are the thing you are done with, Fasted Pro lists a $49.99 lifetime purchase alongside its monthly and yearly options. Our breakdown of free versus paid fasting apps covers which paid features tend to earn their money and which do not.

4. Which schedules do you run?

Coaching apps tend to treat fasting as one habit among several, which usually means one or two supported windows. If you run OMAD, 14:10, or an occasional 36-hour fast, check the presets. Fasted ships six protocols — 16:8, 18:6, 20:4, 14:10, OMAD, and a 36-hour extended fast — and switching between them takes a tap. Not sure which suits you? The meal window planner will lay the hours against a normal day so you can see whether a window survives contact with your evenings.

5. Is a general weight-loss app what you meant to buy?

This is worth naming because it is the fork in the road. Simple, Noom, and their neighbors are behavior-change products with fasting bolted on. A fasting tracker is a single-purpose tool. We wrote Noom versus an intermittent fasting app about exactly this confusion, and it applies to Simple just as well.

Where Simple Is Genuinely Stronger

These are real advantages, not throat-clearing:

• An AI coach that answers questions. Nothing in a plain fasting timer replaces being able to ask something and get an answer.
• Photo food analysis. Avo Vision reading a menu or a plate is a genuinely lower-friction way to log than typing.
• An Apple Watch app. Simple has one; Fasted does not.
• Apple Health integration, listed on its store page.
• Workout and movement plans — Pilates, yoga, walking — that a fasting app does not attempt.
• Scale. 392,000 App Store ratings at 4.7 stars.

If three or more of those describe why you use it, an alternative is going to feel like a downgrade no matter which one you pick.

Where Fasted Is Built Differently

Different architecture, not a longer list.

One job. The home screen is a circular timer moving through five metabolic phases — Fed State, Catabolic, Fat Burning, Ketosis, Deep Ketosis. There is no coach, no photo scanning, and no meal database. You can see the same phase model running in a browser with the free fasting timer before installing anything.

No account to start. The listing says "No account required to start." Open it, pick a protocol, press start. If that matters to you, fasting apps that require no account covers the rest of the field.

Fast Buddy. Pair with one person, see their live timer, send reactions and comments. One partner, not a feed.

Hunger Map. Log hunger spikes during a fast and see when your cravings actually peak. It answers a question a coach would otherwise have to guess at.

A price you can pay once. $49.99 lifetime, if renting software has worn thin.

Widgets rather than a watch. A home screen widget on iOS and Android keeps the timer visible. That is the honest limit of what it does outside the app.

No AI, no server-side coach. Whether that reads as a feature or a gap depends entirely on question one above.

Other Alternatives Worth Knowing

Simple and Fasted are two points on a wide map. If you want the field, the best intermittent fasting app roundup is the survey, Fasted vs Simple is the head-to-head, and Fasted vs Life Fasting Tracker covers another app people land on from the same search. If you need a wrist app specifically, fasting on an Apple Watch lists which apps actually ship one.

And if you are still deciding what to track at all, which fasting app features actually matter is the shortest route to a decision.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Simple still a fasting app?

Partly. Its App Store title is now "Simple: AI Weight Loss Coach" and the product is built around an AI coach and food photo analysis. Simple's own site still refers to intermittent fasting and to logging fasting hours, so the feature exists — it is just no longer what the app leads with.

What does Simple cost?

Simple is free to download with in-app purchases. Its App Store listing shows Simple Pro at $14.99, $29.99, $39.99 and $49.99, Simple Premium at $29.99 and $59.99, and a Workbooks Bundle at $29.99. Simple's site says prices vary by subscription length. Check the listing for the current figures.

Does Simple have a free version?

Yes. Simple's site says the free version includes real-time answers from Coach Avo, Nutrition Scores on logged meals, and the wellness habit trackers.

Does Fasted have an AI coach?

No. Fasted has no AI and no coaching. It is a fasting timer with tracking around it. If an AI coach is what you are replacing, Fasted is not a like-for-like swap and we would rather tell you that now.

Does Fasted work on Apple Watch?

No. Its App Store compatibility section lists iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision. There is a home screen widget on iOS and Android instead. Simple lists an Apple Watch app requiring watchOS 10.0 or later.

Will I lose my fasting history if I switch?

Not in any way that matters. Most fasting apps let you enter past fasts by hand, so a short backfill rebuilds the pattern. And your fasting record is a fact about the last few months of your life, not a number held on somebody's server — uninstalling an app does not undo the fasts.

Which should I pick if I want to lose weight?

Both can support that, differently. Simple gives you coaching, food feedback, and movement plans. A fasting tracker gives your eating a shape and gets out of the way. If you have already abandoned two or three food-logging apps, that history is telling you which category to try next. Working out a realistic protein target first helps either way — the macro calculator will give you a number to aim at.

What to Read Next

• Fasted vs Simple: Feature-by-Feature Breakdown
• Fasting App Features That Actually Matter
• Free vs Paid Fasting Apps: Is Premium Worth It?
• Noom vs Intermittent Fasting App: They're Not the Same Thing