iPhone New reminders VS things 3

[rainbowloveslut]

I've been with Things for a while and love it but prefer to use a stock app like reminders. How do you guys like the new reminders app? is it likely to change more with some better tweaks by the time we get the official release in September?

Anyone else moving back to reminders from things?

RBLS

 

[iDento]

The guys on www.thesweetsetup.com said that it won't replace Things 3, I think it won't. Things 3 might seem simple and basic but it is actually a full fledged GTD app with like the best user interface in the world that make it so easy to use.

With Reminders you will have no tags, no Inbox, no Someday, no Areas of Responsibility, no setting to attach tags to Areas automatically, no repeat tasks inside projects and no integration with other apps like MindNode just to name few.

That being said, I would like it if Things add location based reminders and shared lists like Reminders.

 

[stiwi]

ToDo from Microsoft is finally getting official Mac app available already on App Store for free pre-order (to be released on 17th June). It supports attachments, shared lists...

 

[nutmac]

With Reminders you will have no tags, no Inbox, no Someday, no Areas of Responsibility, no setting to attach tags to Areas automatically, no repeat tasks inside projects and no integration with other apps like MindNode just to name few.

While Reminders lack few things, I think it strikes a better balance of simplicity and power for average users than Things 3.

While Flagged is not exactly tags, it could be sufficient for many users.

Things 3's Inbox is very convenient. But I think creating an Inbox list and dragging it to the top of My Lists is a suitable workaround.

 

[iDento]

While Reminders lack few things, I think it strikes a better balance of simplicity and power for average users than Things 3.

While Flagged is not exactly tags, it could be sufficient for many users.

Things 3's Inbox is very convenient. But I think creating an Inbox list and dragging it to the top of My Lists is a suitable workaround.

Sure, but if you already use Things and use all of it’s features then why?

 

[nutmac]

Sure, but if you already use Things and use all of it’s features then why?

While I generally like Things 3, there are few things on new Reminders that seem more promising (I haven't kicked all the tires yet so these are merely impressions):

• As it has been in the past, I like the fact that Reminders data is exposed to third party apps. If I don't like Reminders app, I can use something else like Memento or GoodTask.
• Location based reminder.
• Shared list. I am flabbergasted as to why this is not a feature on Things 3.
• For a premium priced app suite ($80 if you want all 3 macOS, iPhone, and iPad versions), Things 3 is missing many features, such as custom view and sequential tasks.
• Speaking of price, Things seem to be on a 5-year update cycle, meaning Things 3 is in the mid-cycle (Things 4 is due in 2-3 years). I would love subscription pricing as an alternative option.

 

[rcooked]

While I generally like Things 3, there are few things on new Reminders that seem more promising (I haven't kicked all the tires yet so these are merely impressions):

• As it has been in the past, I like the fact that Reminders data is exposed to third party apps. If I don't like Reminders app, I can use something else like Memento or GoodTask.
• Location based reminder.
• Shared list. I am flabbergasted as to why this is not a feature on Things 3.
• For a premium priced app suite ($80 if you want all 3 macOS, iPhone, and iPad versions), Things 3 is missing many features, such as custom view and sequential tasks.
• Speaking of price, Things seem to be on a 5-year update cycle, meaning Things 3 is in the mid-cycle (Things 4 is due in 2-3 years). I would love subscription pricing as an alternative option.

I’m actually going to switch from Things to reminders when out, simply for the shared lists alone.

Does anyone know if reminders in ios13 will integrate with calendar?

 

[symphony]

Sure, but if you already use Things and use all of it’s features then why?

When Things 4 comes around with another upgrade purchase PER device type, I feel like that’s when people should start switching.

Or if they go subscription-based.

 

[iDento]

When Things 4 comes around with another upgrade purchase PER device type, I feel like that’s when people should start switching.

Or if they go subscription-based.

It depends.

How much do you rely on Things? The next paid upgrade I won’t purchase the macOS app because I’m not using it in my MacBook anymore, but I’ll definitely use it on my iPhone, Apple Watch & iPad.

 

[symphony]

The guys on www.thesweetsetup.com said that it won't replace Things 3, I think it won't. Things 3 might seem simple and basic but it is actually a full fledged GTD app with like the best user interface in the world that make it so easy to use.

With Reminders you will have no tags, no Inbox, no Someday, no Areas of Responsibility, no setting to attach tags to Areas automatically, no repeat tasks inside projects and no integration with other apps like MindNode just to name few.

That being said, I would like it if Things add location based reminders and shared lists like Reminders.

Reminders beats Things for me. It’s as simple and clean as Things. More robust too.

By the way, some of what you said can be fixed in Reminders, these aren’t necessarily workarounds... some of Things’ lists aren’t entirely smart lists like Apple’s 4 smart lists.

• You can make your own ‘Inbox’ list and attach it with its own glpyh, this is more customizable than Things
• Make your own ‘Someday’ list
• You can group lists in Reminders now; groups are your ‘Areas’, and lists are your ‘Projects’
• Tasks can be repeated in Reminders

Reminders is better than Things in some things, such as...

• Reminders can show rich thumbnail previews of attached images, contacts, and webpages within the list; notes and alert times are displayed too
• Reminders can be tied to apps via Siri and the share sheet
• Reminders can alert you if you leave/arrive a location, or if you are getting in/out of your car
• Reminders can alert you if you contact somebody
• Reminders have customizable colors and glyphs
• Subtasks on Things is just a simple checklist, in Reminders they have the same capabilities as regular tasks, meaning they can have previews, alerts, and other details; this means you can turn a regular task as a ‘Things Project’ and have that task repeat
• Shareable lists
• Better integration with the operating system, ecosystem, and Siri (Apple Watch, CarPlay, etc)
• Things will likely charge you for an outrageous price per device type for Things 4, if that ever happens (hopefully it doesn’t turn subscription-based)
• System-wide drag-and-drop is infinitely better than Things, you can group lists fast, you can turn tasks into subtasks fast, etc
• Reminders may not have tags, but you can always add #tag and look for them via search. Although you can flag items and prioritize items too by 3 levels.
• Reminders have natural language when you write a task
• Reminders have deeper ties with the Shortcuts app with automations too

 

[kilcher]

Quick question about Things that has kept me from using it in the past. Most of my items are recurring events. As far as I can tell I need to create an item and then go back into it to set the recurring part of it. I can't just do that when creating the item? Seems clunky to me.

 

[symphony]

Quick question about Things that has kept me from using it in the past. Most of my items are recurring events. As far as I can tell I need to create an item and then go back into it to set the recurring part of it. I can't just do that when creating the item? Seems clunky to me.

Seems that way.

You create the task, back out, select the item by side-swiping it, tap ‘...’, then select repeat.

 

[ZEEN0j]

I’ve been using Things since v3 and love it. There are somethings I miss from reminders (melancholy has a great list). iOS 13 reminders is looking really nice and I will definitely try it out when it’s released.

What I like about Things is the project overview you get, headings, instant search so you can quickly jump to any list, project, tag, heading etc. Full control of the whole app with a keyboard (this is a must for me after using things on Mac and iPad). Things has great url scheme support so automations have been really good with the shortcuts app, with iOS 13 this will be even better. It’s also a beautiful app

What I miss the most with the reminders app is Siri. Being able to quickly add things on the go is a great option. Sure you can enable reminder import to Things but you have go to the inbox and manually import them so it’s not automatic.

I wish Things just removes their account system and do what goodtask does and just pull all reminders data so Siri would feel native. If I remember correctly the reason why they have their own cloud is because it’s really fast and that’s one thing reminders is lacking. Sometimes it takes a while for items to sync between devices. It’s a lot better today though.

 

[symphony]

What I don’t like about the Reminders app is the rounded font, I prefer Things’ bolded headers. Looks more professional.

One thing I forgot to add that Things has something that Reminders doesn’t, that is the ability to add notes to projects, and also dividing projects into separate lists via headings (which I actually used a lot).

But how subtasks work in Reminders, I’ll just replace headings with subtasks.

 

[Tassiecelt]

My thoughts, Ive been using Things for many years, but also like the ios13 updates. (Eg.Notes has been a great replacement for Evernote often 10 years of using it)
with Reminders, one feature no one mentions...attaching images, I find this really useful, MS ToDo also employs this feature. Reminders works well with Siri, as it should, I love the fonts and colours.
however, it is clearly not as powerful as Things3, I don’t use tags, but love the headings, drag and drop the “magic” plus sign, projects and areas.

i don’t like the way Reminders hides sub tasks, totally a deal breaker.

if I hadn’t spent a lot of money already buying all the Things modules, I would go for Reminders now.

 

[symphony]

My thoughts, Ive been using Things for many years, but also like the ios13 updates. (Eg.Notes has been a great replacement for Evernote often 10 years of using it)
with Reminders, one feature no one mentions...attaching images, I find this really useful, MS ToDo also employs this feature. Reminders works well with Siri, as it should, I love the fonts and colours.
however, it is clearly not as powerful as Things3, I don’t use tags, but love the headings, drag and drop the “magic” plus sign, projects and areas.

i don’t like the way Reminders hides sub tasks, totally a deal breaker.

if I hadn’t spent a lot of money already buying all the Things modules, I would go for Reminders now.

Reminders is clearly more powerful than Things, it just lacks headers, which I actually liked a lot about Things, including the drag-and-drop the add button, but in Reminders just tap from any reminders and tap 'return' and it'll create a new reminder where you want it to be.

Reminders have projects and areas, they're called lists and groups.

And yeah, you should switch if Things decide to go on a subscription plan... I do prefer the aesthetics of Things 3, but it lacks glyphs; color coding; rich attachments for contacts, messages, maps, links, images, etc; complex alerts for date, date and time, arriving or leaving a location, entering or leaving a car, or when you contact someone; complex subtasks.

Things doesn't have natural language for creating tasks, and Reminders can be more powerful with Shortcuts and automations, among other things since it's tied to the ecosystem. You also get shareable lists too.

 

[applehound]

Many disadvantages to the new Reminders (as of iOS 13) vs. Things 3. Here are three:

Archiving Projects

If you choose to use Reminders lists as projects, when you're finished there's no way to archive them. This is ridiculous. If you use Reminders, you essentially have to let old projects/lists pile up forever, or else you have to delete them completely. OK, fine, let's assume I'm willing to delete a project/list once it's finished. The completed reminders will still exist in the void without a list for context, right? Wrong. What's even more ridiculous is that deleting a project/list deletes all the reminders inside of it, including completed reminders. How insane is that?

Compare this to Things, which understands that the historical record matters to people. Finished with a project? No problem, there's a handy archive button.

In this way, Reminders doesn't seem like it's designed with projects in mind. Rather, it seems that Apple assumes that you're going to have a number of fixed lists, or contexts, that won't really change. That's fine for GTD but terrible for organizing projects into their own lists.

Tags

Lack of tags is a big deal. On Reminders there are no tags. This means you have to manually add tags by typing into the notes section or somewhere else. This is an OK hack, but it's sucks down the road if you decide you'd like to rename a tag. Are you really going to go back through hundreds of previous tasks and edit the "tags" you added into your reminders? Not likely. There's a reason tags exist, and the fact that Apple still hasn't added this functionality is pretty shameful.

Things 3 is way ahead in this department. Not only are there tags, but you can nest tags, which is super powerful. Unlike some apps with nesting tag functionality, Things 3 has a dead-simple interface that makes it really nice.

Search

Search in Reminders is terrible. For example, as of this writing, there is no way to tell the reminders app to only show incomplete reminders in search results. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. I have scoured the app incessantly trying to find this and it just doesn't exist. If Apple wanted to keep things minimal, the obvious thing to do would be to simply have the drag down on search results to disclose some hidden option to "hide completed," or something like that. Or just add a setting in the Settings app. But no such luck. The problem with this is that it means when you're searching for an incomplete task, you will often see completed tasks appear in search results above the incomplete tasks. Is this some kind of joke? Am I really supposed to wade through dozens of completed tasks from years ago, scrolling down exhaustedly until I finally find the brand-new incomplete task I was looking for? Hell no.

Compare this to Things 3, which was designed by people who actually know how to build software. By default, search ignores completed tasks. If you'd like to search across even completed tasks, simply tap the "continue search" button and bam: you'll see completed tasks as well. Thanks Things 3! No thanks to Apple, the trillion-and-a-half dollar company that doesn't know how to build search into a basic task manager.

Conclusion

These are just three really big ways in which the Reminders app falls on its face compared to Things 3. Yes, Reminders does have some advantages, in some cases meaningful ones, but these aren't minor issues I've mentioned. Search is vital. Tags are fantastic. And forcing people to delete projects when finished is silly.

 

[symphony]

Many disadvantages to the new Reminders (as of iOS 13) vs. Things 3. Here are three:

Archiving Projects

If you choose to use Reminders lists as projects, when you're finished there's no way to archive them. This is ridiculous. If you use Reminders, you essentially have to let old projects/lists pile up forever, or else you have to delete them completely. OK, fine, let's assume I'm willing to delete a project/list once it's finished. The completed reminders will still exist in the void without a list for context, right? Wrong. What's even more ridiculous is that deleting a project/list deletes all the reminders inside of it, including completed reminders. How insane is that?

Compare this to Things, which understands that the historical record matters to people. Finished with a project? No problem, there's a handy archive button.

In this way, Reminders doesn't seem like it's designed with projects in mind. Rather, it seems that Apple assumes that you're going to have a number of fixed lists, or contexts, that won't really change. That's fine for GTD but terrible for organizing projects into their own lists.

Tags

Lack of tags is a big deal. On Reminders there are no tags. This means you have to manually add tags by typing into the notes section or somewhere else. This is an OK hack, but it's sucks down the road if you decide you'd like to rename a tag. Are you really going to go back through hundreds of previous tasks and edit the "tags" you added into your reminders? Not likely. There's a reason tags exist, and the fact that Apple still hasn't added this functionality is pretty shameful.

Things 3 is way ahead in this department. Not only are there tags, but you can nest tags, which is super powerful. Unlike some apps with nesting tag functionality, Things 3 has a dead-simple interface that makes it really nice.

Search

Search in Reminders is terrible. For example, as of this writing, there is no way to tell the reminders app to only show incomplete reminders in search results. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. I have scoured the app incessantly trying to find this and it just doesn't exist. If Apple wanted to keep things minimal, the obvious thing to do would be to simply have the drag down on search results to disclose some hidden option to "hide completed," or something like that. Or just add a setting in the Settings app. But no such luck. The problem with this is that it means when you're searching for an incomplete task, you will often see completed tasks appear in search results above the incomplete tasks. Is this some kind of joke? Am I really supposed to wade through dozens of completed tasks from years ago, scrolling down exhaustedly until I finally find the brand-new incomplete task I was looking for? Hell no.

Compare this to Things 3, which was designed by people who actually know how to build software. By default, search ignores completed tasks. If you'd like to search across even completed tasks, simply tap the "continue search" button and bam: you'll see completed tasks as well. Thanks Things 3! No thanks to Apple, the trillion-and-a-half dollar company that doesn't know how to build search into a basic task manager.

Conclusion

These are just three really big ways in which the Reminders app falls on its face compared to Things 3. Yes, Reminders does have some advantages, in some cases meaningful ones, but these aren't minor issues I've mentioned. Search is vital. Tags are fantastic. And forcing people to delete projects when finished is silly.

“Many” is an over exaggeration. Reminders offers more than Things, you’ve only listed three disadvantages.

In regards to deleting lists, that’s intended and it makes sense, it’s not ridiculous or “insane”. Deleting list = deleting its content. Yep. I’m glad it’s like that.

You can just make a group called “Archive” and drag-and-drop the list you want to archive.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about with search, but incomplete tasks appear above completed ones.

At least Apple doesn’t charge you a lot of money for an iPhone, iPad, and Mac app that you pay for individually. Not everyone uses tags. But in regards to the amount of features, Reminders offers more than Things for free.

 

[Yptcn]

Reminders is the only one I know of that allows me to add a reminder for 3 months

Actually I looked a an other app I used to have , Beep Me , and I can also schedule an interval of 3 months.

 

[petvas]

I have both Things and Omnifocus and am thinking of switching to Reminders, mainly for all reasons Melancholy mentioned. The only thing that makes me want to stay with Things is that it shows you a start date for each task. I want for example to create a task "create document x" and set the due date to August 31st. I would like to start working on the document 2 weeks before its due date. In Things I can set the start date, but on Reminders I cannot. I can only flag it. Is there any way to set a start date in Reminders?

 

[petvas]

Seems that way.

You create the task, back out, select the item by side-swiping it, tap ‘...’, then select repeat.

No, you don't have to. On the Mac you will see a toolbar on the bottom. Just click on the ... and you will see the option to set a recurring theme for your task. I agree though, that the interface could be much better.