DropTask A Visual Todo List for iOS App Review
Like many software developers, I typically have a myriad of tasks and to-do’s on my list each day – and, from time to time, I find it difficult to manage all of those tasks. Couple that with having kids and a home to take care of and things can get pretty overwhelming… As a result, I’m always looking for some kind of tool to help me manage my day-to-day activities.
I’ve tried several of the “To-Do” list applications out there, but generally find myself just using either iOS Reminders or Google Docs to maintain my list instead of the app. However, I did recently try an app that caught my interest and has stood out from the rest: DropTask.
DropTask is an iOS application that is accompanied by a rich-Web application to give you easier, more time-optimized control over what day-to-day activities you need to complete. You can either build projects and tasks from within the iOS application or through the Web interface – a nice feature because it gives you the flexibility to organize conveniently from whichever device is most accessible to you. I can’t tell you how convenient it is be able to start my Monday morning off setting up projects and tasks from my desktop – but then being able to later modify those tasks or add new ones from the mobile app.
With a seamless Google integration, your options for team collaboration and assignments become convenient and fluid. You can log into the app using your primary Google account to add people from your Gmail contacts directly to the application; this feature enables you to easily manage and assign tasks to other individuals, bolstering collaboration efforts. The app also offers integrations with your Google Calendar and Google Drive, so attaching documents and sending your daily activities to your calendar become part of this rich user experience.
Integration tools aside, the thing that most made DropTask stand out from the rest is the excellently designed Graphical User Interface. Within a project, you can create Groups which are represented by circles. You can then easily drag a new task in and out of these circles with a lovely Drag and Drop interface. As you click on each task, you are provided with a task navigator that allows you to manipulate data relative to the tasks such as:
- Due Dates
- Assign Resources
- Set Priorities
- Upload files directly from your Dropbox, Google Drive, or your Desktop
- Create subtasks
- Add Comments
- Add Tags
- Set Task Priority
By using this feature to easily manipulate tasks and groups of tasks, I found that I could quickly set up my to-do list for the entire week – and it only took me a matter of minutes.
Once I had created my set of tasks for the week, I then opened the app on my phone to find that everything immediately synchronizes to the iOS application; this on-the-fly synchronization meant that I could access and use my To-Do list wherever and whenever I needed it.
As far as negatives go, the only thing I would mention is that the iPhone and iPad apps require separate purchases and the fact that I couldn’t use them universally across all my devices was a bit troublesome. Also, I really believe that the application should allow you to schedule start and end times for each of the tasks, sending push notifications when the task is about to start; having to manually manage the state of the tasks was a bit cumbersome and, because there is no reminder or prompt, I found it a bit too easy to forget to mark a task as In Progress or Completed.
All in all, I find this to be an excellent Time Management Application that really has proven to be quite helpful with managing all of the items that I have to do in any given day. I found it easy to use and the uniquely designed user interface made for efficient management of my daily tasks. I would definitely recommend DropTask for any users who find themselves relying on Reminders, Google Calendar, and Spreadsheets to manage their day-to-day activities.