This week we look at the Apple Design Award-winning task manager Things, and an official app to come from the movie reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
Things
Things is a task-manager for the iPhone. There's a good chance that you already know this, since it's been one of the most celebrated and well-regarded iPhone apps of all time - an impressive feat, not only because there are over 140,000 apps on the App Store now, but also considering the number of high profile task managing and to-do apps for the iPhone. I've previously reviewed
Put Things Off as a low-cost simple solution to task organisation woes, but Cultured Code's
Things is at the other end of the spectrum. It's more expensive, with a more advanced (yet surprisingly simple) way to manage what needs to get done.
Things' user interface is remarkably similar to the iPhone's Settings app. That's fantastic, because it means you already know how to use
Things as soon as you open it. There's so little that you need to learn to be able to effectively use the app that even the newest iPhone users could manage creating, tagging and choosing the right folder for tasks. The simplicity of
Things is in sharp contrast with quite a few other to-do apps (not just on the iPhone, but on other built-in smartphone task managers too). Want to create a new task? Tap on the bottom left corner and you can instantly create it. Then it's just a matter of adding some tags, a due date and/or a folder to put it in - all optional extras that aren't required to use the app at a basic level.
Despite having a similar interface,
Things' quick and easy method of adding tasks and editing them is quite unlike anything else. Every function of the app is explained graphically through efficient use of icons and buttons (the
Things app icon in itself is a delightful way to indicate what the app is all about). If users open the app with tasks overdue, they're displayed in the 'today' folder by default and the app put a badge on the app's icon once
Things has been quit. In terms of sharing your created tasks (a useful feature for group collaberation work),
Things offers a simple 'Send Email' feature that's quite self-explanatory. In the future, I hope
Things will include more sharing options - such as the ability to share tasks on Twitter or Facebook.
If you're really looking towards creating a brilliantly efficient way to effectively organise and manage your tasks, you can't go past
Things. I was disappointed to learn that the app doesn't yet support push notifications to display tasks outside of the app once they're due, but I expect it will be added in a future update, and in my opinion, will make the app near-perfect. It's so easy to use that any lack of advanced functionality is almost immediately cancelled out. Combined with the use of Things for Mac (an expensive US $50 additional purchase from the Cultured Code website),
Things becomes a solid task-managing application for your iPhone.
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Last time I wrote a news post the iPad didn't exist, now every man and his dog wants one. (NSFW, especially if you work at the Macquarie Bank)
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