Michal Ždanský To-do list has always been one of the most important apps on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Long before Apple introduced its own Reminders solution, the to-do section of the App Store was a hot spot. Currently, you can find hundreds if not thousands of task management apps in the App Store. It's hard to stand out in such competition.
An interesting path was chosen by the developers of the Clear application, who focused more on the effectiveness of the application than on efficiency. The new Czech task book Easy! follows a similar path, the advantage of which, in addition to an interesting design, is also the number of gestures that make the application more interesting to use.
Easy! it has no ambitions to become a competitor to OmniFocus, Things or 2Do, instead it wants to be a very simple task manager, where rather than advanced management, it is important to simply and quickly write down and complete tasks. The application does not have a completely traditional structure. It is based on lists, which you switch between from the settings or by holding your finger on the name of the list. Each list is then divided into four predefined groups of tasks.
Video review
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Groups are represented by four colored squares with their own icon and task counter. From left to right you will find Make, Call, Pay a Buy. Groups cannot be edited in the current version, the name, color and order are fixed. In the future, however, the possibility of creating your own groups outside of the predefined four is expected. A vertical scroll bar with groups would definitely be an original element among todo applications. The groups themselves do not have any special properties, they are only used for better clarity of the most frequently assigned tasks. Groups are more like predefined projects that the developers think you will use most often. The quad definitely makes sense and definitely fits into my normal workflow, where I most often write down common tasks, monthly payments, and a shopping list.
To create a new task, drag the screen down, where a new field will appear between the first task in the sequence and the groups bar. Here the developers were inspired by Clear, which is not a bad thing at all. This gesture is often easier than looking for the + button in one of the corners of the app. If you have dozens of tasks written down and you are not at the end of the list, you need to start dragging from the square icon of the group.
After entering the name, you can double-tap to open the notification settings, where you can enter the date and time of the reminder, or activate the alarm clock icon to determine whether you should receive a notification with a sound at a given time. An interesting gesture is a quick swipe to the side on the date or time, where the date is moved by one day and the time by an hour. This ends the task options. You won't find any note-taking, repeating tasks, prioritization or location-based reminders like Apple's Reminders can do. However, the developers plan to add some new quest options in the future.
Completing and deleting tasks is then a matter of a single gesture. Dragging to the right completes the task, dragging to the left to delete it, everything is accompanied by a nice animation and sound effect (if you have sounds turned on in the application). While deleted tasks are lost forever (they can be returned by shaking the phone), a list of completed tasks for an individual group can be opened by double-tapping the group icon. From there, you can delete them or return them to the unfulfilled list, again by dragging to the side. You can also see when the given task was completed in the task history. For easier orientation, the tasks in the list have a different color according to their relevance, so at a glance you can recognize the tasks to be completed today or those that have been missed.
Of course, tasks can also be edited after creation, but I don't really like the current implementation, where I can edit the name by clicking on the task and the time and date of the reminder by double-clicking. Changing the name of a task is something I rarely do, and I'd rather have the simplest possible gesture for something I use more often. The same is true for the lists in the settings. Instead of clicking on the name to open the list directly, a keyboard appears to edit the name. To actually open the list, I have to aim at the far right arrow. However, everyone may be comfortable with something different, and other users may be comfortable with this implementation.
After creation, the tasks are automatically sorted according to the entered date and time, those without a deadline are sorted below them. Of course, they can be sorted as desired by holding your finger on the task and dragging up and down. However, only tasks without reminders can be ranked, and tasks with reminders cannot be moved above them. Tasks with a deadline always remain at the top, which can be limiting for some.
Although the app offers synchronization via iCloud, it is a loner in the Apple ecosystem on the iPhone. There is no iPad or Mac version yet. Both, I'm told, are planned by the developers for the future, so it will be interesting to see how Easy! continue to develop.
The Czech development team definitely managed to come up with an interesting and, above all, very good-looking application. There are some interesting ideas here, especially the row with groups is very original and good potential if it can be adjusted in the future according to your own priorities and needs. Easy! probably not for very busy people who complete dozens of tasks a day or who rely on the GTD methodology.
This is a very simple task list, functionally simpler than Reminders. However, many people are fine with an uncomplicated user interface without features they wouldn't use anyway, and Easy! so it will be an interesting choice for them, which also looks good.
[app url=https://itunes.apple.com/cz/app/easy!-task-to-do-list/id815653344?mt=8]
If it cost €0.99, I wouldn't hesitate, but for €2,69 it's unfortunately too much.
Does the price of 2 beers seem a lot to you?
you're really speculating as a Beta with a price above €2.50 and you have an iPhone for €600?!? I really don't understand this anymore. Sockam FREE !!!
don't you happen to have a BMW and live with your mother???
It looks and works great. I also have Clear, we'll see what I add later...
If I'm not mistaken, something similar or the same has been around for a long time.. For example, taasky, and if I don't remember, it's also from the guild! The creators of this app want over 2€, but they probably didn't pay for the graphics themselves, because the design is very substandard. In addition, on iOS, where the design sells..
On the contrary, I really like the design, I think this is a matter of opinion and I agree with the author of the article that the application is really nice. And I really like its simplicity and, above all, clarity, so it's great for me and I'm looking forward to further development.
Thanks for the article, I bought easy right away and I'm very happy with this app so far. Finally, something organized my tasks for me, and thanks to the color scheme, I can immediately see what I have to do. For me, it's definitely better than Clear, which I bought some time ago and couldn't stand it.
I would like to know if after the reminder is displayed on a locked phone, it remains displayed even after the phone is unlocked. It doesn't work with Apple's reminders, often the whole text is not visible on the lock screen (mainly because it says "swipe to view") or I unlock it so quickly that I don't even have time to read what it was and after unlocking nothing is shown.
Díky
I will give it a chance and support Czech developers.
I like the idea with those categories and the gesture control doesn't look bad either. The shuffling of days and time left and right seems particularly original to me. I really like the graphics, everything is pretty simple and it doesn't look like apps from iOS 6, thank God! :-)