Review – bitAlpha’s eToDo iPhone Application

This is the first of many segments to come as a partner to Erin Blaskie’s “eThusiasm” blog. Every episode host, Erin, picks her Top Three favorite applications of the moment and gives a brief overview of said apps. Of the three, I’m taking my favorite, or the one that seems most interesting, and testing it our for a couple days in order to get a proper feel for it. After its trial run you can stop back here or on eThusiasm for the review! Enjoy the post and don’t forget to click the thumbnails to be taken to a bigger view of the screenshots. :p

Today’s review is featuring bitAlpha’s eToDo iPhone application. eToDo is an a task oriented application helping its users add, manage, and remind themselves of upcoming tasks they may have in the school or workplace. eToDo is capable of storing, adding, editing, and repeating tasks. With that idea in mind, you’re not capable of keeping every little task and obligation in order.

I really found the application quite simple to use. There isn’t a lot to it, and I don’t think you could really ask for big changes to it. It starts when you firstload up you’re newly purchased app. You notice first, it’s “lists”. The default list is:

• Inbox
• Action
• Next
• Someday
• All
• Completed

Of course, through the settings, you’re able to go through and either add, edit, or delete these items. Upon further inspection of the lists, you notice that this is really your main base, or headquarters. As I mentioned, there is not much to this application. Just a few clicks and that’s that. If we explore the ‘Inbox’ icon you’ll be brought to a list of your upcoming, completed, and/or repeating tasks.

As you can see, this is the basic look to eToDo. It’s the beginning to a list of things to do. You can see my task in hand. “Write up eToDo review.” It’s due today, and I’ve classified it as a blog post tag. I used the computer icon to remind me that it needs to be done on the computer as opposed to any other platform. I know, I know… you’re thinking, “it just CAN’T be that easy to setup a task!” Alas, it is! When you pull up a new task, you’ll meet this screen:

Inside this window, you can select an identification icon to classify or remind yourself of a general idea about the task in order. You may also: give it a title, post a note, give it an urgency, set dates and repeating time, and also tag it. Again, nothing to it. After adding your task, let’s say you need to go back in and set it to repeat every week. It’s easy, with the click of a button you’re back in to the edit panel (below) and you can edit anything in the touch of a button or swipe of the finger.

And now, you’re wondering, you said this was a simple app, there can’t be more. And you’d be correct. We’ve started a task, and then we’ve edited it. It’s a basic app and one cute enough to love.

However, there are a few things I’m not all that fond of. For example, when it comes to dating your tasks. This is a pet peeve of mine (maybe some share it) when I set a task due next week, eToDo will set it up to say “December 10, 2009 +7 Days.” Which is fine, it gets the point across. But my peeve really hits when I think it’d be easier on the mind to say, “…A week away” or “7 Days Away.” It’s not that I’m lazy. Because I’m not, it’s just more convenient and something I, for one, am used to seeing in all of my apps. But really, this one issue in such a beautiful application? It’s hardly something sweat over. It gets the job done.

I put a lot of thought in to how I can grade the applications that I’ll be reviewing. After a few moments of thought, I came to the conclusion that these would fit best:

• Look & Feel: I’ll be looking at how the overall design is for the app. This could range from color and fonts to positioning of app items and the cute little heart I write over all my i’s.
• Ease of Use: Everybody loves things that are easy to use. The iPhone isn’t exactly the easiest thing to use. You may thing you’re a pro, but the easier an app is to use, the less you’ll notice it’s actual difficulty.
• The Good, The Bad, And the WTF: The “finer points of the app, the bad parts, and the WTF what is this doing in an app” portion is my favorite rating. It’s a simple description.

Before I continue, however, I will express my honest opinion. Before downloading and installing this app, I was weary. I googled eToDo, and I read some pretty harsh reviews, and maybe they were reviewing a previous version of the application or maybe they just didn’t like the company in general. In my case, I really loved the app and I’ll continue using it. It fits my needs as both a student and a busy person in general. I’ve been using it for school, work, and even little reminders that I need to go do small tasks like shopping or schedule appointments for a doctor or haircut. It’s such a great application, I’d recommend it. Please enjoy and here’s my official scoring for the application:

• Look & Feel: The loading screen isn’t much to look at. It’s a little TOO basic for my liking. I wouldn’t even know who created the app if I didn’t look it up. There’s just no sign of it unless you really look. (bitAlpha, btw). However, when you really get in to exploring it, you see that it’s quite pleasant. The design is edible and you can really have some fun and enjoy the backgrounds they’ve provided. No icons, or task related items feel out of place or stand out (in a bad way). Everything just has a very modern class to it and it’s very easy on the eyes. The text/font of everything is very easy to read, and well mapped out. Easily my favorite thing about the application. Score: 9.0/10

• Ease of Use: As I mentioned throughout this post, this app is so easy to use. Just a few taps of the iPhone (or iPod touch) and you’re ready to go. It takes under 45 seconds to create a new task, and even less to edit it. There could be a few additions to this section (see below). Score: 7.5/10

• The Good, The Bad, and the WTF: I’ll keep this simple. The good thing about this app is that it’s quite easy to use. I’ll say that forever. The bad is, that such a simple app actually costs money. I’ve seen a few free apps that have more to it. Although, you have to keep in mind, you are in a professional world and you’re dealing with a professional application. I don’t think the $0.99 is all that expensive for this application. I’d really through a fit if it was any higher than that. As for the WTF! moment for this post, they’re lucking out. There isn’t anything that really JUMPS OUT at me that is highly wrong. I could mention all of the little things that annoyed me, but it would be fair. Score: 7.5/10

Total Score: 80/100

Overall this app is definitely worth the buck. There may be some better apps out there, but they may be a bit more expensive. Functionality of this is incredibly easy, that in mind, I don’t think you can find one really worth the price aside from bitAlpha’s eToDo!