Reminders app iOS / iPadOS

I am sure this has been covered somewhere. I was not able to see it in a search.
A couple years ago Apple “upgraded” their Reminders app, thus breaking any synchonization with older computers or iOS devices. I grieved this loss but figure, it was for the better good of a new and improved Reminders app. To this day, I am struggling with the new app. Despite having an iPhone X and an iPad Pro (both running up-to-date software), I still get poor synchonization, broken shared lists (bye bye groceries list with my spouse), and bizarre behaviors (such as, rescheduling scheduled reminders but still getting a notification badge). I am so frustrated with Apple breaking such a basic and core app.

Has anyone else had this problem?
Has anyone else found a fix? (ie: nuke and pave; halt synchronization/renew synchronization)
Has anyone else moved to a better app?

I don’t necessarily need complexity as much as reliability and speed.
What I liked about the reminders app was that it was pretty easy to cue from Siri (“add milk to my groceries list in reminders” #done).

A Restart never hurts.

I’ve read that people have had success by pull-to-refresh their calendar Inbox, of all things.

My basic recommendation is Turn Off and Then Turn ON Reminders from iCloud (Settings > [Name] > iCloud) on all devices. If installed, you might even want to delete the app-widget too, then re-add it after turning on iCloud again. (And a restart for good measure.)

If that doesn’t work, for iOS the more drastic steps include deleting the app and reinstalling it, and restoring settings (Settings > General → Reset) and even resetting all settings (Reset All Settings > Enter your iPhone passcode > Reset All Settings, but note that while this won’t delete any personal data, it will erase all Wi-Fi passwords, VPN configurations, Privacy Settings, and more.) The final response might be a full Restore, but if you’ve got a bad configuration file that option will only restore it.

Here’s what Apple suggests:

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Yeah… On different issues, I have done that with varying degrees of success.
Always a huge amount of time investment, even if there is a potential cathartic payoff.
I suppose my post is 1/2 lament and 1/2 hoping to dodge that hornet’s nest.
I’ll probably have to pull on this string…

More often than not, when I mark a reminder as completed on one device, I end up later having to mark it complete on other devices as well.

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I know a lot of older fans like to throw out the Steve-ism “it just works”… but this really is a thing that just needs to work. The older version was simple and skeuomorphic - but it did it’s job pretty reliably. Apple needs to make sure that they do not undermine a lot of their hard-earned ground along the “services” front.

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It’s worked for me, but it’s also so basic I just use the Reminders plumbing in iOS + Siri to auto-forward all reminders to a 3rd-party task/alarm app. Once a reminder is made it transfers over to an app like Due or Todoist then deletes from Reminders itself.

Tell me more about how you accomplished that. I’m intrigued. :slight_smile:

With Due I use the deprecated, yet still actionable procedure shown here which adds a reminder to Reminders then it automatically is imported into Due. (It’s been officially replaced by using a Shortcut.)

WRT Todoist Siri understand tasks, items and lists (but not projects) and can understand commands like

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It has been a couple years since I looked at Todoist. I will have to give it a try. Same thing for Due.

Due’s great. I use it for reminders as well as noisy, repeatable alerts I might not hear from the comparatively anemic alerts in Reminders and Todoist. We’ve discussed the app here a number of times, including here and here.

Todoist is in the process of reinvention by the developer - they’re adding Trello-like boards later in the year, among other things. It’s a very usable app but no beauty. For me one of the biggest advantages is the 2-way calendar sync with Google Calendar (which is available even in the free version of Todoist); with it I can schedule something and within seconds have it appear as a Todoist calendar event in Google Calendar, but I can also be in the calendar and move things around and they immediately sync back to Todoist itself. (If you normally use Apple Calendar [or Outlook] you can always create a free GC calendar account for yourself then subscribe to it in Apple Calendar and the 2-way sync will still work.)