Portfolio and Blog of Dan Mowchan

While browsing the AppStore this week I stumbled over eTodo featured in the “What’s Hot” section. At only $0.99 I thought I’d give it a try considering the screenshots looked relatively impressive. Amongst the countless other GTD, or Getting Things Done, applications available solely for the iPhone platform, does this underdog have what it takes to compete with the likes of Things or OmniFocus? I’m just going to give everyone a heads up: I’m a sucker for gloss and simplicity, and this app is very polished.

I haven’t used any other GTD apps on my iPhone, but I’ll be comparing to my experience with these apps on the Mac platform. When you open up the application a quick splash screen pops up and you are ready to start planning your to do lists. A quick click in the bottom left hand corner will get you started on a new task. You can customize many options concerning each task. The options range from a customizable icon for each task to priority level – yet, there are not too many options that it becomes an overwhelming process each time the user needs to add a task quickly.

The user can name the task (naturally), add a note to go with it, set the priority from low to urgent, choose a due date, set the task up to repeat and add tags. The tags can later be used to filter through your list of tasks if you need to. The tasks can be sorted further into a handful of groups to make your life easier. The Inbox is for anything you create quickly to get done, Action is a group for tasks you are ready to get done, Next is for the tasks that you aren’t quite ready to complete but will next and Someday is for the tasks that you do not know when you will get to. The system is well designed and can be used relatively easily – if you are sitting down taking your time entering your tasks. On the run, I tend to just skip this step and sort them later if I need to.

The part that sets this app apart from all of the others in the GTD marketplace of the AppStore is the level of effort put into polishing this product. The simplistic approach makes it incredibly easy to manage your tasks and even sort them by due date, priority and more. It feels like it could be an official Apple created application, but it also has its own touch of style to it; eTodo is simply a stunning application to look at. It makes managing my tasks fun and actually makes me want to use it.

All in all, eTodo is a solid application for those who wish to bring some order into their lives. It helps me keep track of the tasks I need to complete on time and it does so brilliantly. I highly recommend downloading eTodo today.

[ eTodo - AppStore Link ]