As great as iOS is, it’s had one missing feature since the days of the original iPhone: lack of built-in to-do management. That will change with iOS 5’s upcoming Reminders app, but you can take charge of tasks today with BusyToDo, which brings familiar to-do management to your iDevice. How familiar? Picture iCal’s to-do features, then imagine most of them transplanted to a no-nonsense iOS app. That’s BusyToDo.
BusyToDo uses your MobileMe account or a Snow Leopard CalDAV server to sync to-do items from iCal (and BusyMac’s own desktop calendaring app, BusyCal) to your iOS device and back. Once to-dos are synced to your device you can search and filter them according to due date, priority, calendar and more to quickly find the ones you want. Of course, you can edit these to-dos -- and make new ones with the same criteria -- and configure customizable default settings that fit the to-do items you make most often. If you’re the forgetful type (and let’s face it, if you need an app like this you probably are) you can assign alarms to your tasks that can occur at specific or relative times before or after important events. Heck, even unimportant events are supported.
You can also create repeating tasks, a feature currently unavailable in iCal. However, BusyToDo’s developers (and an unmissable in-app message) warn that repeating items created in BusyToDo can’t be edited in iCal without risking data loss; future instances of the to-do may get wiped out in the process. Until iCal supports the feature, you’ll need to use BusyCal ($49.99, busymac.com) to edit them back on your Mac. If that isn’t a deal-breaker, you’ll find the rest of BusyToDo is seamless and easy to use. It just works, so much so it almost feels like a native Apple app.
That brings us to the big changes coming this fall from Cupertino. MobileMe will be available until June 30, 2012, but before that deadline its data-syncing features will be replaced by iCloud, due to arrive this fall. BusyMac’s developers plan to make BusyToDo compatible with the new service when iCloud officially drops.
The bottom line. If you’re a MobileMe subscriber who needs to manage to-do’s on the go, BusyToDo is a smart choice.
of 5
iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad running iOS 4.1 or later
Seamless syncing with iCal over MobileMe. Easy to use. Allows recurring tasks. Universal app.
Recurring items must be edited in the app or in BusyCal, not in iCal.
