Sometime very soon I need to get out a review of Things, which has been my favorite iPhone Tasks manager app forever (or at least since the day it came out). I love this app, both on the Mac and the iPhone.
It ‘s just had a small (in terms of the number of enhancements added) but significant update “ to Version 1.3.5. The biggest change is that it now syncs areas of responsibility “ the Things equivalent of GTD ‘contexts ‘ “ so you can now see your tasks viewed under their areas as well. So, for instance, as shown in the screencap above “ I can jump in and look just at those tasks I ‘ve got in the ‘Home ‘ area via one tap, or quickly review everything under ‘Apps To Try ‘.
This was apparently the most requested feature from iPhone Things users, and I ‘m not surprised. It was lovely to see and greet this new feature last night. To see this in action, you ‘ll need to make sure that your Mac version of Things is also up-to-date, running Version 1.1.
Apart from this headline change, most of the other enhancements seem to be in the area of sync. Here ‘s some more background on this from the Things Blog, which is also a lovely example of the sort of love and attention to details that impact the user experience that have always shone through in Things and that result in a fantastic app on both desktop and iPhone
The overarching goal for version 1.3.5 was to significantly improve sync reliability and experience. But we also added important general improvements. The most important one being Things ‘ ability to more accurately return back to the last screen that was shown before you quit the application. This might seem like a little improvement, but it is actually quite significant, since it solves the problem of potentially losing vital text when a phone call comes in. Previously, when you were typing away on a note and a phone call came in, you lost the recent changes of that note. Now, after you open Things again, it will return to the editing screen with your latest changes waiting for you.
When returning back to Things, it doesn ‘t always make sense to show the last screen you were using before you exited. You might have forgotten exactly what you did last time. Instead of making the user always navigate back through potentially deep hierarchies, we tried to find a middle ground. For example, let ‘s consider a scenario where a user is managing tags while editing a to-do, and then quits the app. In such a case, we do not return to the Manage Tags screen, but instead show the to-do the user was editing before.
If you ‘re already a Things user, I think you ‘ll enjoy this update a lot. If you haven ‘t tried Things yet, I definitely recommend giving it a look. You can find Things in the App Store HERE, priced at $9.99.
UPDATE: My explanation of what Areas of Responsibility are, and how they fit into the GTD style of task management was not correct, as pointed out to me by reader aflorence in the comments. Here is his, much better, description:
As far as I can tell, Areas of Responsibility are like roles or… responsibilities as opposed to projects. For instance, I could have an Area of Responsibility for "iPhone Beta Tester" with the tasks of "provide device id to developer", "install ad hoc file on iPhone using iTunes", "evaluate app", and "contact developer with feedback", which is more like a repeatable checklist as opposed to projects, which are more specific, usually one-time actions.
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TAGS: iphone apps, iPhone task manager apps, iPhone todo apps, Things
