I’ve been downloading practically every app on the iPhone I can find that does to-do lists. My discovery: They all suck.
There exist fundamentally two different kinds of to-do apps, falling on either side of the GTD line. In one camp, the strict GTD mentality, with apps that all look fundamentally identical and are tedious to use effectively. In the other, apps that stress (either on purpose or by ineptitude) simplicity at the expense of useful features.
Probably the most important thing that all of the apps miss is that I’d really rather spend more time crossing things off my list than adding them to begin with. The ones with useful features seem stifled by the iPhone standard UI controls and a clumsy entry process.
I’m thinking of a list of features that would be ideal for my perfect to-do list app, pulling specific features that I liked from some of the apps.
I really like Quickie. It makes it super-easy to add many items to a list at once. It’s missing a ton of other features, though. It needs the ability to move items between lists, schedule due dates for items, and take notes for each item. Ideally, scheduled to-do items would be shown on the calendar - really the whole thing should be stored in iCal, moving the current to-do list to the current day, day-to-day.
The major problem I have with the existing apps is that when you add a new item, you are required to enter all the other item details right then. I have no problem with additional item details, but insisting that you add them immediately ruins the flow of adding many items that don’t need additional details.
I really like Helvetical. It’s method of setting times for events is very simple after you figure it out. Setting due dates like this would avoid having a separate page for item details.
Teuxdeux’s app is good at letting you move things from day to day. This method could be used to easily move things from list to list. Teuxdeux also syncs with their site, which is nice, but using some more universal service for storage, like DAV and/or iCal with a web interface, would be better. Accessing to-dos from the desktop without the iPhone is essential, but it shouldn’t be inextricably tied to some other service, like Teuxdeux or Toodledo.
Finally, I guess people have a use for the “context” feature. If thee was one feature that I’d remove from all of these apps, it’s that one. Too complicated to use, clutters the UI, doesn’t do enough for you to make it worth entering…
I should mock up a UI for a to-do list app that would work well for me. I suspect that I’m not alone in my dislike of the current overabundance of lousy options.
