# TimeTree

> Education

Canonical page: [https://chrome-stats.com/d/id372842500](https://chrome-stats.com/d/id372842500)

## Overview

- **ID:** `id372842500`
- **Platform:** Apple
- **Type:** Apple app
- **Status:** Available
- **Publisher:** Arizona and Penn State Universities
- **Category:** Education
- **Rating:** 3.50 / 5 (12 ratings)
- **Version:** 4.0
- **Last updated:** 2015-08-03
- **First published:** 2010-06-04
- **Size:** 66 MB
- **Data as of:** 2026-09-22
- **Store listing:** [Apple App Store](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timetree/id372842500)
- **Website:** [http://www.timetree.org](http://www.timetree.org/)

## Description

TimeTree 4 is a public knowledge-base for information on the evolutionary timescale of life. This application allows easy exploration of the thousands of divergence times among organisms in the scientific literature. A tree-based (hierarchical) system is used to identify all published molecular time estimates bearing on the divergence of two chosen organisms, such as species, compute summary statistics, and present the results. Names of two taxa to be compared are entered in the search window and the results are presented on a set of self-explanatory tabs.

TimeTree 4 contains data from 2,274 studies including 50,632 species. We will be adding more data in the future as it comes in from researchers.

TimeTree 4 requires iOS 8.0 or newer.

The TimeTree project is jointly directed by Blair Hedges (Center for Biodiversity, Temple University) and Sudhir Kumar (Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University). This project has been supported, in part, by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, NASA Astrobiology Institute, and Science Foundation of Arizona.

## Rankings

- #344,636 — Overall

## Review summary

TimeTree is a free, educational app that helps users explore evolutionary relationships and divergence times, with handy links to NCBI and a strong potential for lectures and classroom use. Users praise its concept, breadth of content, and the engaging way it presents LCAs. However, repeated reports of crashes, freezes, and unreliable search cripple the experience. Compatibility and UI issues on newer devices, plus a lack of guidance or a manual, also hinder adoption, especially for non-experts. Stabilizing performance, fixing search, and improving onboarding would unlock the app's educational value.

### Pros

- Free educational tool for taxonomic relationships and last-common-ancestor (LCA) data.
- Useful for lectures and learning; provides divergence times as quick references.
- Engaging to explore evolution; includes external links (NCBI) for deeper research.

### Cons

- Frequent crashes and instability; the app won’t open or freezes on various devices.
- Search functionality is unreliable or broken (malformed results, cannot search, errors).
- Compatibility/UX issues on newer devices and older hardware; layout not well optimized; limited onboarding.

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Source: [Chrome-Stats](https://chrome-stats.com/d/id372842500)