It ’s understandable if you ’ve barely give more than the briefest of attention to Apple ’s newly - announce Reminders app foriOS 5 . After all , it was just one ofthe ten tantalizing iOS 5 featuresApple frailty prexy Scott Forstall unveiled during the Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday , and a fresh to - do list app seems decidedly less sexy than , say , the novel notifications system .
But from what we ’ve look , even in beta form , Reminders seem like a pretty solid project - direction app . Although it wo n’t fill Getting Things Done devotees , and it offset a variety of cleverly - implemented feature of speech with some head - chafe omissions , admonisher should be an impressive launching from Apple into the Io to - do list space .
The Reminders interface calculate like a sheet of white loose - leafage paper . If you tap on the next available lily-white distance — or the plus icon ( + ) at the upper right , you could begin creating a raw reminder immediately . In a decided reward over real college - ruled paper , if your to - do debut needs to enwrap , the white-hot space expands mechanically for that item , pushing the risque line extractor further down . The initial task conception process is thus pretty simple — but also lacking in any extra metadata . If you ’d care to add further details to your chore , you knock on it .
That reveals the admonisher details screen . When you first charge that screen , you’re able to tap to edit the task itself , tap cue Me to schedule notifications , rap Show More to amplify further options , or pink Delete to take away the task . Tapping Show More expands options to schedule a due date , plant a priority story , or modify which of your lists a reminder belongs to . Hiding those extra behind the Show More button makes the edit screen a bit simpler , but at the expense of hiding advanced options behind a needless supernumerary water tap . And right now , the app does n’t learn that you ’d rather always flesh out those alternative alternatively of defaulting to Show More , if that ’s your preference .
Unsurprisingly give its name , the app focalise a lot of its attention on programing reminders . you may schedule reminder to alert you at a specific date and sentence , but you may also tie them to fix . Reminders can set your current emplacement , or you’re able to pick out a disjoined address from your Contacts ; there ’s currently no way to enter an computer address manually . With positioning - ground reminder , you’re able to opt to be reminded when you leave a specific location , when you arrive at a specific location , or both . For model , you might arrange a reminder to “ pick up milk ” to alarm you when you leave your situation .
determine a due date , and reminder will trigger a notification as that date gets skinny . If you prefer to set a priority for your task , you’re able to choose from Low , Medium , and High . Nothing much happens with that antecedence though ; you only see it if you go back into that task ’s details screen . Priority does n’t impact sort or prominence of case-by-case task at all . At this point , there ’s also no option to reorder your tasks manually ; they posture in whichever rescript you recruit them .
Each task you bestow fetch a checkmark , and gibe off a chore note it as complete . It will stay on in your active reminder list ( checked off , of course ) until you navigate aside to another concealment within the app . When you pass , the discharge task is gone , shuttle forth into a dispatch section that you reveal by scrolling up past the first entry on your list . This behaviour is not presently configurable .
you’re able to create disjoined tilt of reminder . On the iPhone , you then pilfer between screens ( as if turning pages ) to get at another list . The iPad shows a permanent sidebar ( in both orientations ) with all your inclination . The iPhone version of Reminders does n’t volunteer a landscape painting mode .
Perhaps the most powerful chemical element of Reminders is that it can sync to other machine via iCloud . you’re able to also keep your tasks to Google Calendar or Exchange servers , which then deal the syncing separately . Reminders is expect sync with iCal on the Mac and Outlook on Windows when iOS 5 go far later on this year .
Overall , Reminders is a simple , vanilla app . What the app does do , it handles elegantly . It wo n’t peril more advanced labor managers — if anything , Reminders could give people the taste for manage to - ut that pushes them toward more knock-down apps like Todo and think back The Milk . But depending on what features are added to the final version , some likewise uncomplicated labor management tools in the App Store will facesome serious competitionfrom Apple ’s built - in offering .
