Things 2
A major update to your productivity
(via culturedcode.com)
After we’ve waited so many months, the second major release of the task managing software Things finally came out. Things 2 is a even cleaner and smarter version of my favorite ToDo app, which most importantly solves the problem of cloud synchronization. Since the private beta in May 2011 and the public beta in February 2012 Things Cloud managed to sync tasks for more than 30,000 users already. But on top of that Things 2 is full of other amazing new features, that make task management smarter than ever.
Things Cloud
Compared to the local network Bonjour Sync that Things had before version 2.0, Things Cloud is up to 4x faster for all the changes you make. According to Cultured Code’s press release Things Cloud operates securely and based on a SSL connection between your clients and Things’ servers.
Things Cloud is free and works fast and reliable. You only have to switch it on in Things’ preferences, create an account and it works all across your devices.
But frankly I hoped to see such a seamless experience like Cheddar provides, but with Things Cloud you definitely see pull requests with timestamps and sometimes you have to request the sync manually. I think the concept behind the sync is a push when you re-open the app. This implementation of cloud sync is definitely not the best but its great to work with.
Easy user interface
For those of you who didn’t know Things before this review it’s important to know that there are only a few apps that provide such a clean and intuitive to use UI. Everything is sorted by projects, tags and dates like today, next, scheduled and someday.
Let’s go on with the new features…
…Quick entry with Autofill
With a system wide shortcut the quick entry feature of Things is a great way to quickly add new ToDo’s to your inbox. And with Autofill it’s even more powerful to add meta information or longer text from e-mails, for example.
Daily Review
Daily Review is a great new feature of Things 2 which helps you to manage the tasks you want to do today. It’s often a problem to plan for many days or weeks but with Daily Review you have the ability to chose what you want to do today and what to move to another date in relation to your daily planning and the time you have. And it’s also great to not forget about tasks you didn’t have time to do the other day.
Apps
Mac OS X ($49.95) | iPhone ($9.99) | iPad ($19.99)
Cultured Code did an amazing job with designing three gorgeous apps for Mac OS X, iPhone and iPad. All three apps have the same concept and utilize the different advantages of each platform. And as we have Things Cloud now, everything is in sync.
Summary
All in all I think that Things 2 is a great update of the most beautiful task magaging software for the Apple universe. Although Things Cloud isn’t that great as syncing services of other apps it is great to don’t have to worry about if everything is up to date. Together with Daily Review, Things 2 convinced me to switch back to it from Wunderkit I used full time before.
