Things (iPhone).

The iPhone has many todo list managers of varying complexity and cost. They’re meant to keep your list organized and in your pocket, while offering Mac- or Web-based synchronization for more complicated maintenance. Remember the Milk is one of the simplest, and it’s free. OmniFocus is one of the most complex, and it’s (as of press time) $20. Things is $10, and (as you’d expect) it sits somewhere in-between, attempting robustness without getting too much in the way of your work.

This is a hard spot for a product to sit – and doubly so for a program meant to augment the actual process of working. What constitutes robust enough for a majority of users, such that they feel more empowered at no speed expense?

Things walks this fine line deftly, with a few foibles that are easy to tweak in successive versions.

Form.

The front screen shows two classification schemata: either what projects various items pertain to (although new items don’t need to pertain to any projects), or when they’re supposed to be completed.

You go into various projects and mark various items due “Today.” You can also schedule items, which move into Today on a preset date. “Today” has a specific connotation within Things: it’s all the things you mean to accomplish literally today.

The project view is visually differentiated from the task lists by making the checkboxes about twice larger on each side, and by putting each > to view the settings of an item in a blue circle.

Gray 3-D bars form the header and footer of every screen on Things, with icons in the lower bar and a title in the upper. In general, the cosmetics are quite similar to the conventions used by other Apple-made iPhone apps. This all contributes to familiarity, as well as perceived simplicity; after not much use, Things looks like it belongs on your phone.

An add button is located in the lower-left of every single view. Lists of todo items look much like lists of email or songs. A move button is located in each list, to classify project-related items by time or to shift from project to project. A star button, when pressed, allows you to mark items to file in “Today.” Lastly, a button exists in the shape of a luggage tag, which allows you to tag items.

Function.

Because of the prominently located button and simple, unambiguous interface, adding new todos is fast and rhythmic, making it an easy routine to follow. Focus is placed on the text box, so you can immediately begin typing. The top button has mechanisms to save and cancel, placed on opposite ends to prevent user error. And the default folder is selected as the one you’re navigated to at the time. If you choose to add items when located in the wrong folder, you can change this setting. (I usually navigate there ahead of time; this helps prevent error on my part.)

And most importantly, none of this is overlapped by the default iPhone keyboard.

Things preserves your past location when you restart the application, displaying the screen that you quit from. This could be disorienting when you don’t remember exactly what you last used, or if you want to routinely plot a route to get to the right place. There may be large groups of people who favor either this method or starting at the home screen each time, but there’s no setting to toggle between the two. (Which would be the default? This could be answered with user testing.)

Deleting items and projects works like deleting email in the iPhone’s native Mail application: you swipe across an item to reveal a red “Delete” button. Undeleting items is a little thornier. Once you quit Things, completed items are moved to the “Logbook.” In order to undelete an item, you have to go into the Logbook and move it to the folder or project you want. But that doesn’t set it as incomplete, so it’ll drop back into the Logbook the next time you quit:

So then you have to go back into the folder you sent the item to, and uncheck it like it was a normal todo item. And you have to do this before you quit Things again.

You also have to go through too many navigation steps to edit an item. From the list view of todo items, you have to tap the item to get to its settings. Then you have to hit the “Edit” button in the upper-right corner. Only then can you tap the label and edit its contents – in a separate screen. It would be faster and easier to tap the label in the todo item’s view, rather than to hit the “Edit” button. Then it would automatically pop up a cursor, keyboard, and “Done” button.

Preferences are set within the application, instead of in the Settings app where they should be.

Conclusions.

Things has been lauded by many critics and reviewers for its simplicity. It’s not as simple as a flat, bulleted list, but it manages its complexity very well. I have better praise: it does just enough. Its more advanced features are hidden, so that people can immediately begin using it and “graduate” to the more serious features.

And on a personal level, I never have to worry about tending my proverbial todo garden, but I still manage to integrate it into my workflow; and my eternally distracted, forgetful self benefits so tremendously from a place to keep things to do, to keep me on track.