Omnifocus was great, but the user interface was too much for me— too cluttered. Went to Things 3 when it was released and absolutely love using it. My wife hasn’t used a task manager until I set her up on Things last week— the clean interface, MacOS and iOS support, and intuitive nature of the software won her over.
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OmniFocus 3 UI seems much cleaner than OF2, fwiw.
No reason for you to switch, if you love Things. I’m just kibitzing.
I suspected that would be the case. In my opinion, Things 3 is one of the most well designed apps for the iPhone X. One of those beautiful apps that just “pops” off the screen.
Like many I have tried them all, this is my take
ToDoist: Used for a year, and it was useful for sharing tasks with my other half, but it never quite “stuck” no real reason, just a nagging feeling OF2 (which I started with) was more powerful.
2Do: I actually liked this, from ToDoist I went back to OF, and recreated quite a complex workflow in 2Do with no problem, it’s highly underrated, and if the Mac app looked better (yes I know, that’s shallow), I may have settled happily.
Things 3: Trying to keep up with the cool kids I gave it a go, for me it was a case of style over substance, it does not handle single action lists well (or at all really), as has been stated the pie charts are worse than useless for never completing projects, and it simply does not scale well to large systems in my experience. I tried to like it but for my needs, lots of single action lists based on individual clients, it simply could not cope.
OmniFocus 3: (current Beta tester) The most powerful by far IMO. Complex if you choose it to be or simple if you prefer. It handles multiple projects areas lists and recurring “events” such as domain renewals with ease. Tagging is useful but like a lot of OF use it, or over use it or not, the choice is up to you. I have never understood the “complex/steep learning curve” thing, as it just grows with you, and the interface stays out of the way and lets you do what is important.
Of course as others have said, it’s all relative, and unlike Lord of the Rings there probably is not one “one ring (or task app) to rule them all”
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I’ve largely sworn off task managers in favor of a tightly curated calendar and a group of lists I check and update regularly.
That said, my experience is that Things is clearly the most attractive and pleasurable of these apps to use in the Mac/iOS ecosystem, but that for free nothing beats Todoist and its 2-way calendar sync in the free tier.
FYI if you like the overall look of Things you might enjoy trying the very pretty and free Taskade, which has Mac and iOS implementations and is oriented specifically towards task lists and collaboration. Pro version is “coming soon” but everything is free right now.
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I was wrong. The Things Team pointed me to https://support.culturedcode.com/customer/portal/articles/2803605
So at rest the data is encrypted with AES 256. BUT they own the keys.
Maybe they will add client-side encryption in a future release.
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Follow-up: I had a free Todoist account and received word from the developer that at the end of this month they are increasing the premium plan to $36/year, but will permanently(?) lock in the current $29/year price to anyone who is or becomes a premium member by the end of this month. Since I like the app’s near-instantaneous 2-way sync with Google Calendar I ponied up for a year to see if I can get along with it.
Todoist also recently announced that after their last major UI revision in 2015 a new redesign is coming in a matter of days. From what they’ve said, it appears like it will offer a cleaner, more Things-like experience. Given that the last update followed Google’s then-new Material Design guidelines, I assumed the new version would implement Google’s revised Material Theming. But Doist’s head of design said in an interview that the app will feature “a totally fresh and updated look. But the redesign will go much deeper than that. We’re rethinking some of Todoist’s core foundations with pretty much everything on the table.”
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I switched to Things 3 from 2Do. Not because Things could do more, but rather the interface was much cleaner.