Review : Reminders For iPhone

Reminders for iPhone is a default app for task management that you will find on all new iPhones and iPads. With Reminders bundled with the iDevice means you do not need to pay a single cent for it. But how does it fare and is it good enough for the task heavy person? Read our take after the break.

Task management is a crucial thing. That is why we used to carry organisers with us back then. And that is why phones like the Blackberry and PDAs like the Palm were popular back then. Office people loved their task management via a phone. Losing an important piece of information wasn’t so bad after all.

But times has changed and we now live in the iPhone era. And with that, an AppStore with 1.2 million apps isn’t exactly easy for the new iPhone user. What more if he wants to find an app that few Malaysians might use? That’s where we come in.

If you are new to the iPhone or haven’t looked for an alternative, Reminders is good. But after awhile, you might find it limiting. And that is the reason we’re doing a series of reviews on task management apps for the iPhone.

If you would like to follow, we have already reviewed Things for iPhone here. In reviewing Reminders, we are breaking down our scoring system into various points.

1) Ease of setting a task

It is easy to setup a task or more on Reminders for iPhone. It all starts with creating or choosing the list you would like it to be in. Then task creation is an easy job of naming the task and setting the schedule you would like the app to remind you.

While it is easy to setup a task, threaded tasks, comments and sub tasks are absent from Reminders. This makes reminders limited for the in-depth task management that you might need.

2) Sorting the various tasks

While Reminders has a search bar on the top of the app, searching for a task is tedious. If you forgot the name of your task, you would need to search through the various lists or the search bar. In more advanced task management apps, tagging the task helps you remember the category it is in.

3) Overdue tasks

While the Reminders for iPhone might buzz on your Mac if your task is overdue, it is lacking. On Things for iPhone, we found the ease of finding and rescheduling overdue tasks a great help. Things for iPhone also makes it easy to see overdue tasks, as those would be in red.

While it is good to find task reminders on the front screen of the phone, even better would be email reminders. That is why services like Followup.cc and FollowUpThen.com are well received by working people.

4) Collaboration

While it is good to be able to share tasks, even better would collaboration be. But yet, Reminders for iPhone has a limited 6 person family sharing capability. But enabling family sharing also means paying for everyone you are sharing with. That includes all their purchases on iTunes and the App Store.

Reminders does not have any other way of collaboration. This hampers Reminders from being a tool in the office or in teams. Rather, Reminders ends up being the basic tool on your iOS device and Mac.

5) Price

The only good thing we could think of is Reminders for iPhone is free. Nonetheless, we would love to see a paid version with stronger options.

Conclusion

Reminders for iPhone comes free and is adequate for your basic task management needs. However, if you need something more powerful, you’ll need to look at alternatives.