iPad To Do List and Task Management Applications

Aside from browsing the Web, the iPad may be the first mobile device that really makes managing tasks and to do lists easy and useful. I tried task management on the iPhone and just couldn't get excited about managing lists on the small touchscreen. The expanded real estate and speed of the iPad should make a big difference. Note to Apple: Multitasking in the next iPad OS update will help a lot too!

Here are some of the top to do list and task managers that you can check out today on the iPhone, OS X or the Web. These are the most likely task and to-do list applications to be quickly tailored for the iPad:

I've always been most impressed with Cultured Code's Things. It's an aesthetically well design OS X application also available for the iPhone. It's $50 on the Mac and $10 on the iPhone.

OmniFocus for OS X costs $80, it's iPhone application $20. I found OmniFocus a bit wonkier - it reminded me more of Windows applications than OS X apps.

The New York Times likes both Things and OmniFocus as well: see IPhone Apps to Organize Your Life from July 2009.

Both Things and Omnifocus are designed to work well with the Getting Things Done system, a book subtitled "The Art of Stress Free Productivity". I've never been a GTD cultist - but some that I've known are remarkably accomplished people.

Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen

The next up on the list would be Apple's own iCal now called iPad Calendar. I am hopeful the larger screen on the iPad may drive Apple to make improvements to its basic task management system. Screenshots of the iPad Calendar look great - it's just hard to tell if they've done anything new with tasks.

Remember the Milk is a Web-based to do list manager with an iPhone application. The RTM Pro account is $25 annually and bundles the iPhone application for me. I began using RTM on the Web and tried it on my iPhone but found it just wasn't responsive enough for me.

Both the New York Times and LifeHacker like ReQall, an interesting voice recognition iPhone driven task manager. It'll be interesting to see how ReQall migrates their service to the iPad. It's strength is on the phone - will they come up with an iPad application that pulls everything together. It'll be interesting to see.

Similarly, Evernote, may struggle to move from the iPhone to the camera-less iPad. I could never get excited to use Evernote, but it seems like a useful tracking (list-type) service. 

LifeHacker also likes Zenbe, a cleanly designed Web and iPhone to do and task management application.

Google's task list also warrants a mention - but again, it's not compelling me to switch. I just can't excited about the Web-based apps.

Comments

[Matt Stanley]

The main issue here is Apple's lack of task management as a part of the iPhone OS. How can you build a smartphone without tasks! Sure, some of the 3rd party task apps are nice. But, they don't sync over MobileMe to my iCal tasks on my Mac. Apple, where is task management!

[Paul Andrews]

Thanks for this Jeff, very helpful. It seems most of reaction to the iPad has been what NOT to like, as though aspect ratio or Flash are deal-breakers (Flash will come of course but I happen to agree with Jobs, I don't want my stuff to break just to satisfy a couple of apps like Hulu). I think this one will surprise people. Yes it doesn't have everything but the things it does well will be huge. And TM is certainly high on that list. As a mobile blogger, too, I've been waiting for this for a long time. OMG no more Netbook Toyz R Broke. That said, I'm reserving judgment, or at least my plastic, till I see one...

[Jeff Sepeta]

Things = $50 for a todo list on the mac, and $10 for the ipad client. Seriously, $70 to take a copy of my todo list around with me? Here's a scenario where PAPER makes more sense, because apple's todo list (part of ical) doesn't sync to the ipad, and a utility like this should be part of the system.