Ultimate Todos – Review

Our rating:

By: Ultimate Todos

Version #: 1.5

Date Released: 2008-10-06

Developer:

Price: 4.99

User Rating:

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So having settled on Toodledo the question is- which iPhone app to use. It isn’t easy since there are a number of choices and all are good. Appigo’s ToDo is the oldest and most powerful. Toodledo issued their own iPhone app a few months ago and also offer an excellent iPhone optimize site. And WebIS’ upcoming PocketInformant for iPhone will make use of Toodledo for tasks. UltimateTasks was the only currently released iPhone app I had not tried but I did today after seeing an update come online. After seeing the app I’m mixed- not on the app (it is excellent) but on the fact that my choice just got more difficult.

Since Ultimate ToDos uses Toodledo as the engine it is immediately familiar.   

The Dashboard gives instant access to all tasks. The flexibility is fantastic. Tasks can be grouped and sorted by importance, scheduled date, priority or status.
Customized contexts are supported and the app even let’s you use custom icons for each.
Tags are also supported and they too can be customized with icons of your choosing. And since tagging’s power comes from the non-linear access, a task can have multiple tags. This makes it a vastly more powerful approach than mere folders.
The app’s Home screen badge is similarly configurable. It can display the total number of tasks or just the ones that are overdue, due today, flagged or of high priority. 

In all it is a solid task app that is powerful because it let’s you choose how the app looks and works. The degree of configurability is tremendous.

But I haven’t gotten to the best part of it yet- Clickability. I know I’m a bit obsessed on this point but on a converged device such as the iPhone I should be able to click on a phone number or email address and have the call or email initiated. Like Appigo’s ToDo, Ultimate ToDos let’s you assign a contact to a task. On this app these links are called "Reference Contacts" and you can add one or more to any task. These links can be used to call or send email to the related contact(s) directly within your task/todo. Click the information and the call or email is started. No, it isn’t as good as having phone by numbers or email addresses automatically become live links, but it is definitely a step in the right direction.

In addition the app supports Voice Notes. While the app allows you to record and add multiple voice notes to each task/todo it does not sync to Toodledo. (This is not  a function that is available in Toodledo.) Even with this limitation it is a nice added to feature to have, however.

Finally, the "quick" features are nice, as well. Quick task/todo lets you edit several fields of a task/todo within the first Task Details page. While quick voice tasks make it simple to quickly create a new task/todo with a voice recording.

The only place where the app might fall down, depending upon your taste, is in its overall appearance. By and large the icons feel a little softer and "less professional" than they might otherwise. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however, since it certainly brings a more lighthearted aesthetic to the heaviness of going through your tasks. I would, however, recommend anyone considering buying the application first take a look at the screenshot or two to decide if it’s the parents you want or not.

Quick Take

Value:  Very high
Would I Buy Again:  Yes (although the first application that has true "clickability" will be the one I ultimately use on a daily basis.
Learning Curve:  Low to medium depending upon how much configuration
Who is it for:   Someone who is committed to using Toodledo as their task management system
What I like:   highly configurable, solid, "reference contacts", only $4.99
What I Don’t:    I’m somewhat mixed on its overall appearance due to the icons

Final Statement:  In all Ultimate ToDos is an excellent app that can be as simple or as complex as you want.  If you use Toodledo it is definitely worth a look.