A couple of questions about Things:
Would I need to buy different apps for iPad and iphone. Not something I would expect but something in the long thread above made me think that it’s possibly the case.
Is there a subscription?
What is the syncing mechanism between the various platforms (Mac, phone, iPad, etc)
Thanks
Separate purchase on each platform. iPhone, iPad and Mac all separate purchase.
Things is one time payment only. No subscription
Sync is via Things Cloud
Thank you.
So you have to create a things cloud account. That’s a pity.
Yes, if you want sync between devices, you need a things cloud account.
At this point the only thing keeping in me Things is that I already paid for it haha. I am a super light user of todo apps.
I’d switch to Reminders if they showed a badge for all-day events for the current day. Stephen went into this in Connected a month or so ago. Crazy that they don’t do this.
It deserves pointing out that the Things syncing service is the most robust, reliable and instantaneous thing I’ve ever come across. It might seem unnecessary until you’ve seen and trusted it. Then you can’t live without.
Yet I don’t get why they—as a German and potentially data privacy concerned company—do not offer end-to-end encryption. Especially since what to sync essentially is just text and meta-data. No images, no documents, or other files.
One issue with e2ee task databases is that it would be devastating if someone lost their key and the data became unrecoverable. Much more so than losing something like chat history. A software company has to put a lot of thought into designing account setup and account preferences to reduce that risk if a “tough luck” demeanor isn’t compatible with their brand.
To be honest, most to-do lists are less important and much simpler to recover than any journal with years of memories that would be lost by forgetting the key to an E2EE journal in Day One or the hassle to go through all the hundreds of services to reset your passwords if you’ve lost your 1Password key.
There are many options beyond educating the user:
In times where a lot of people put a significant amount of their net worth into digital crypto-currencies, which’s access could be lost unrecoverably by forgetting or losing the access keyphrases, I’d say tech-savvy people are capable enough.
Not offering E2EE or not being entirely privacy-centered is no longer appropriate and will put you in the off in the next years as an app dev.
I’m also jumping between the two currently. Things definitely looks nicer and doesn’t crop text at the end of lines, but Todoist has priorities.
One annoying thing for me recently that is pushing me towards Things is that Todoist seems to reformat Zoom links into markdown links. I have quite a number of tasks where I need to send out a meeting reminder with a Zoom link and have this ready by pasting it in the description. It becomes really annoying when you need to delete the markdown link syntax that Todoist has created of its own volition. Can’t seem to turn that off either.
Priorities workaround with Things: Send tasks to the top of the list.
There’s a shortcut for it: ⌘+⇧+↑ will place the item to the top of the list (same with ↓ will move to the bottom of that list).
Agreed. When I’ve used Things I created three areas: PRIORITIES, WORK, PERSONAL. I then moved top priority projects to the PRIORITIES area. That worked fine for my needs. It looked like this:
I compared Todoist and Things 3 back in 2018 and have settled on Things 3 since. Posting it here, it may be of use to others in a similar position:
Even though its 3 years old, its still very much valid. Both Todoist and Things have added features but its still largely the same.
original post: 2018 Task Management Analysis: Things vs Todoist
Yes. And sometimes I just open the same Things list in two side-by-side windows and drag tasks from the middle of the list in one window to the top in the other. This works on the Mac or on the iPad.
I’d like it if Things would support headers in the Anytime and Someday areas, but I live without it.
I have thought of doing something like that but I do use a couple of areas for other reasons, so I’m not sure that would work for me.
I’ve been experiencing some slow syncing with Things. In comparison Todoist is instant. When I write stuff into Things and then switch devices it has not synced and there’s no mechanism to force a sync so I often shut the app and restart. The same is true when I email to my Things inbox.
Todoist on the other hand is faster at syncing than I can switch devices. I’ve never needed to force a sync (which can be done by pulling your list down). Same goes for emailing. Todoist also keeps far more of the email formatting that Things does.
Is my slow Things sync specific to my setup or does anyone else find it slow?
It’s crazy fast for me. I would encourage you to contact their support.
Nope, it was really fast for me when I was using Things. Background syncing is tricky on iOS devices, if I correctly remember iOS gives more background time slices to apps that are being used more so it’s easy for something to go wrong. You also need to determine which of the devices is unable to sync (observing three different devices may help to triangulate the issue).
