Reminders

I made the decision a few weeks ago to install the beta of macOS Catalina. It’s still pretty buggy, but since I enjoy testing out new features (and writing about them), I am willing to deal with the crashes and incompatibility throughout the summer. One of the biggest surprises for me has been the changes in the Reminders app. Over the years, I used several to-do/GTD/project management/task apps. From Kindless GTD, Omnifocus, Things, and Todoist, I’ve used a lot of them. I’ve always looked at the Reminders app with interest, though. It’s hard to beat the advantages of a built in-app. With macOS Catalina and iOS 13, the Reminders app is finally ready to take its place alongside the rest of the task apps on the Apple ecosystem.

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I’m a big fan of the “Getting Things Done” methodology from David Allen. I’ve been following it for most of my professional career, and I attribute it to being able to stay organized and on task with my full-time job and writing here at 9to5Mac. With that being said, I don’t put everything in my GTD app. There are a lot of items like grocery lists, home repair plans, or even simple weekend tasks that end up in a list app. I want it to be easy to add to, easy to mark off, easy to organize, and simply get out of the way. It’s the heaviness of my GTD app that allows my simple list app to be light. I’ve tried a bunch of apps, so here’s my round-up of the best list apps for iPhone.
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Apple’s Reminders app is one of their apps that has the most potential in my opinion. While it didn’t receive much of an update with the announcements of iOS 12 and macOS Mojave, I believe that with some additional features, it could become the go-to GTD/task/productivity system for most people.

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Last month the popular Waze navigation app on iPhone got a major update with a new design and improvements to reporting traffic issues and sharing arrival times with others. Now Waze is out with its next new version which brings 3D Touch shortcuts to the Home screen icon for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users. Firmly press on the updated icon to quickly look up an address, share your location with other users, or get directions to your work or home address from your current location. Waze also says the update includes the usual bug fixes and improvements.

Fantastical already features 3D Touch shortcuts from its Home screen icon, and today the calendar and reminders app is adding more 3D Touch features for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users…
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Google today announced that it’s bringing its Google Keep note taking app to iPhone and iPad for the first time after originally releasing only for web and Android users a couple years back.
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Following Fantastical’s recent debut on the Apple Watch, which includes the full iCloud Reminders experience and more, Flexibits is delivering a neat new drafts feature to the intelligent calendar app and newly added support for another language.
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When Apple Watch and Watch OS 1.0 shipped in April, the definite omission of an Apple Reminders app on the platform was particularly surprising to me. The Apple Watch User Guide even highlights the app’s absence:

There’s no Reminders app on Apple Watch, but Apple Watch notifies you of reminders you create in the Reminders app on your iPhone—and on any other iOS device or Mac that’s signed in using your Apple ID. Also, you can create reminders using Siri on Apple Watch.

Creating and responding to reminders is fine, but my girlfriend and I use a shared iCloud Reminders list for our grocery list, and being able to glance at the watch as you walk through the supermarket without pulling out the iPhone is an ideal use case for Apple Watch. Fortunately, Flexibits has developed a new version of its Fantastical app for iPhone that brings the full Reminders experience to Apple Watch, fulfilling an important use case for the watch I had in mind before it arrived.

Fantastical for Apple Watch also brings the excellent streamlined calendar list view to the watch, complete with the app’s easy-to-use natural language parsing feature that sets it apart from Apple’s own calendar app…
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Apple may not have included its Reminders app on Watch OS, but Todoist is bringing its own to-do list app to the Apple Watch. Included in the latest update to the iPhone version, Todoist for Apple Watch lets you sort through your tasks and projects, respond to alerts, and even create new assignments.
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Fantastical’s ability to parse natural language input and create detailed appointment entries on your calendar has always been the primary reason to use it instead of or in addition to Apple’s own Calendar app on the Mac. Apple Calendar has picked up some language parsing smarts in recent updates, too, but it still doesn’t match Fantastical’s control and real-time appointment preview.

Still, I say in addition to because Fantastical for Mac has lived in the menu bar next to your clock, WiFi status, and other utilities where you can quickly access it for reference or adding an appointment from anywhere in the OS. The menu bar app includes a compact month view calendar above a streamlined, scrollable list view of appointments and reminders, but sometimes it’s nice to stretch out and view your schedule in a different context.

So when Fantastical first debuted on iPad almost a year ago putting the efficient list view next to a larger full calendar, I wrote optimistically that “the iPad’s app design could spill over into a future version of the Mac app (maybe as a dock app rather than a menu bar app).”

What Fantastical 2 for Mac actually became is even better: the same menu bar calendar users know and love (but new and improved!), and a full-sized calendar app with an optional dock icon. Both have been designed with the aesthetics of OS X Yosemite in mind and loads of under-the-hood features and improvements including the ability to actually change which calendars you see based on your location.
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Fantastical for iPhone and iPad, the alternative calendar and Reminders app from Flexibits, received a major feature update today for iOS 8 users. If you’re unfamiliar with Fantastical, the ability to turn text input like “Dinner with Tim tomorrow night at 7pm” into a calendar appointment without fiddling with menus and dials is it’s killer feature.

Fantastical for iPhone received an update last month which optimized the user interface for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus users, and today’s new version adds a Today view widget in Notification Center, an app extension for use in other apps, and interactive notifications for responding to alerts without even opening the app. Check out the new features in the latest version of Fantastical for iPhone and iPad below.
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Anyone who has ever had the misfortune to have to use a corporate hours-tracking/billing system will know that they typically give every impression of being designed by an enraged gorilla working to a spec provided by a sadistic accountant.

Tapity, which won an Apple Design Award back in 2011 for “the ultimate app for students” Grade, has today launched Hours, a simple color-coded app it says aims to take the pain out of time-tracking. I’ve been using a pre-release version for the past week so that I could let you know my thoughts on the day it launched …

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After previously announcing the feature and showing it off last month in a promotional teaser, Realmac Software is finally bringing the highly requested reminders functionality to the popular Clear to-do list app on both the Mac and iOS platform. The latest version also brings some extra goodies that add even more personality to the app like new sound packs. Check out the details below to see how the latest version of Clear measures up as an alternative to Apple’s own Reminders application and other apps as well.
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After first debuting on the Mac then joining iOS with the iPhone, Fantastical is finally ready to replace the calendar on your iPad, too. With Fantastical for iPad, Flexibits has brought the same, streamlined design and natural language parsing for quick event and reminder entry to the iPad. I’ve been using Fantastical for iPad for a few weeks now, so let’s take a look at how it compares to Apple’s calendar app…
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Fantastical isn’t the only app with a new version on the way. Realmac Software, makers of the popular to-do list app Clear, have been hyping the addition of Reminders functionality since late last year and expected to ship the update around this time. Realmac says its still fine tuning the Reminders experience in Clear and expects to release the update early next month. This marks the first time we’ve seen a shot of how the Reminders function will look in Clear (seen above) as well as a blurred teaser for the Mac version as well (notice the calendar date picker).

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A glitch on iCloud.com suggests that Apple will soon add a way to view iCloud Bookmarks on the iCloud.com portal. The screen, shown above, appears briefly at this URL when users try to install the Chrome extension from the iCloud Control Panel for Windows.

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