To Do Apps… What To Do?

The Potion Factory finally came out of hiding and released v1.0 of The Hit List (after 2 years of nothing).  At the same time they released the iPhone app and their own proprietary sync service.  None of this is cheap.

I have THL on my Mac.  I was a champion of it for a long time, but I desperately needed something that will also allow me to get at my list when not at my Mac.  In the interim, that thing has come to be ToodleDo. I find the interface clumsy at best, almost hostile for getting things done – which if you’ll remember, is the name of the game.  It is almost the standard back end for many apps though, except, notably… THL.

Now that they’ve come out with an iPhone app ($10!) and the sync service ($20/year!) do I just buy into it?  Or throw it all away and look for a replacement?  I’m not opposed to paying for another solution, as long as it’s worthwhile.  I already bought both Pocket Informant and 2Do for my iPhone, both of which sync with ToodleDo so I have that part handled. What I don’t have is a decent desktop app that completes the circle.

Enter Appigo’s ToDo.  They released their new app a month or so ago, and it notably has ToodleDo sync support.  Yay!  It was Mac App Store exclusive, so no trials were possible.  Boo. Today I noticed they do have a 14-day trial available! Yay!  So I downloaded and am starting to compare.  This is what I have so far.

Right now ToDo is winning on number of features but THL has some doozies. Multiple contexts are great for when you have to do something like print out something at home and have it signed by someone somewhere else.  It would have to be two different tasks in ToDo (is that going to be an issue?)

The other powerful feature not mentioned is keyboard shortcuts.  It seems like you can do absolutely everything in THL via the keyboard, and tags are part of the text of the task.  It makes entering things extremely quick and efficient.  ToDo only seems to have a few keys for the most basic functions, like New Task, Synchronize, and Complete Task.

Frankly, if he wasn’t charging for both the iPhone App and the Sync service I would much more easily buy in to this.  It just seems like a money grab and a lock-in.  He doesn’t even offer a local wi-fi sync!  You absolutely can not buy purely both pieces of software and have them in sync from day one.  This irritates me the most.