Review Todo 3.2 for iPhone

I am always looking for possibilities to make my life easier wherever I am. Therefore I’ve got a hosted exchange environment for my Calendar, Contacts and Push-Mail. But sadly there is no good way to sync my Exchange Tasks with my iPhone. Therefore I was looking for another option to sync my tasks with my iPhone and a “cloud-service”.

First thing I needed was a good cloud service for my tasks and when looking on the internet there were only two services which  were reliable, stable and not too expensive. Those two services are “Remember The Milk” and “Toodledo”. The second thing I was looking for was a decent application on my iPhone to sync with one of these two services.

On my search through the iTunes Appstore I found many task application, but one application caught my attention and was a real keeper. Todo mainly caught my attention because it is more expensive than most applications. In my opinion this is not a problem, but the price difference must match the quality of the application and the available features in the application.

A lot of task applications in the Appstore do just what is says – Keep track of tasks. A few of them also give a possibility to synchronize between exchange, RTM or Toodledo but the application “Todo” has much more to offer and with the new 3.2 update even more features are added to the application.

Now lets get a deeper dive into the application and go through some of the features.

Features

When going trough the features of Todo it quickly becomes clear that there are tons of features and I cannot go trough all of them. I will try to point out the features I think are most important when using this application.

Tasks, Projects and Checklists

Meta-data a task can have when entering a new task

When pushing the “+” button for adding an items, different items can be selected. A Normal task, a Project or a checklist. It is also possible to select the default tasks “Call, Email or SMS a Contact”, Visit a Location or Visit a Website.

A normal task has more than enough data which can be entered. Meta data like Due Date, Due Time, Priority, List, Context, Tags and Notes can be entered.
A Project has all these values but is more than a Task. A project is a task with sub-tasks attached to it. The Project task is displayed in lists and the sub-tasks can only be viewed when you enter the project.

The last is the checklist. A checklist can be compared to a project. The checklist itself has everything a “Task” has too but the items inside the checklist are no tasks with Due Date, Due Time, Notes, etc. but just a Title. The checklist can be very much compared to a shopping list.

Lists

Todo has 3 standard applications lists. “All, Focus and Inbox”. The list “All” standard gives an overview of all the tasks in the application. In the Application settings this can be changed. For example it is possible to display only tasks from specific other lists.

Which tasks are shown in the “Focus” list is also defined in the application settings. Here you can tell which tasks should be shown, hidden or filtered in this list.

The “inbox” list is also an application. Just like the list “All” and “Focus” the “Inbox” list cannot be renamed or deleted. This list is meant to be as an collecting box for all the quick tasks you enter in the application while you’re on the go and when you’re in a rush. When using the default settings all the tasks entered (quickly) are standard placed in the inbox. The inbox is intentionally a list which should be reviewed every once and a while and the tasks inside should be re-assigned to other lists.

It is possible to add you own lists. With adding your own lists tasks can be ordered nicely and your tasks. I added a few lists of my own like “Home”, for my task I need to do at home, “KEMBIT” for tasks at work and “MobilityMinded” for tasks I need to do for this website.

Contexts

Every task can have assigned a context. Contexts can be explained as a “location” where the task can be assigned to. I actually have never used the option contexts, but different contexts can be “@Home”, “@School”, “@Office” or “@Computer”.

Note: I personally have used my Lists and contexts combined, I basically used my lists as context and have ignored the contexts-feature in this application.

Quick add

In the application setting there are settings for a default new tasks. When pushing the Quick Add button you create a task with the default settings (Due Date for example can be Tomorrow)  for adding a new task and only the Title can be entered. Quick add is a great way to add many tasks in a short amount of time to your Todo application.

Synchronization

If you are someone who likes to do (more) with Getting Things Done (or GTD) it is good to know that Todo already likely supports your favorite cloud-tasks-service. Todo is able to synchronize with three different services. “Remember The Milk” (Only if you have a RTM Pro account), Toodledo (Free, Pro & Pro Plus) and via Appigo Sync (A free synchronization tool to sync your tasks with iCal or Outlook).

I’ve been using Todo with the free account of Toodledo, but a Toodledo Pro account is recommended when you use Todo’s projects and checklists.
Remember The Milk is also supported, but synchronization is Only possible if you have a Remember The Milk Pro account.

The third synchronization service is via Appigo Sync. Appigo sync is a service which needs to be installed on your Mac or Windows Computer (Windows Version is currently in Beta). With this application installed on your computer you can sync your Todo tasks with iCal or Outlook. Note that your iPhone and your computer need to be connected to the same WiFi network in order to successful synchronize your tasks.

Alerts

Todo offers Push-notifications. Of course the task needs to have a due-date AND a due-time. Before the push-notifications can be delivered to the iPhone, the push-service needs to be configured. How the push-notifications can be configured can be read on the appigo website

Overall thoughts and Wrap-Up

The thing I like most about this application that it can be used by many different types of users and they will all experience the same, solid basis this application is built on. I am no GTD expert but I think I can judge well enough that this application is THE application for people who are GTD Experts. On the other hand this application is also very good and can be used very well if you are (like me) no GTD Expert, but just want to keep track of your tasks.

This application is a perfect alternative for my Exchange Tasks. As a matter of fact I don’t use my exchange tasks anymore. All my tasks are now within ToDo synchronized with Toodledo. In my opinion the best combination available.

ToDo costs $9,99 (or €7,99)  and is available in the Appstore (Appstore Link)