Seems like the new Reminders version will have all the important features of Things and also support for attachments. At that point, Cultured Code is going to find it impossible to find new customers.
Or am I missing something here? Is there something Things can do that Reminders can’t that will continue attracting new users?
I don’t see this as a problem for Things competitors. All but OmniFocus are multi-platform, and OmniFocus attracts people who have a need for advanced scriptability and customization.
I expect exiting Things customers will stay with Things, because why change a system that isn’t broken. But Cultured Code will have problems attracting new customers, or even selling upgrades.
As someone there already pointed out, Things still has several advantages over the still-unreleased Reminders update, like tags and projects. Just as 3rd-party notes apps never got killed off, to-do apps won’t die either.
It’s far more likely that also-rans still limping along (like Firetask) will go away.
Well, you bought into the app, so keep using it until you see if Reminders offers anything you miss.
And it’s not implausible that they will finally utilize (or at least communicate with) Apple’s underlying calendar- and Reminders-based plumbing in a future update, especially as those features become more powerful and customers clamor more loudly for it. The limitations of these features are what have allowed supersets to become popular, like Cardhop for Contacts and GoodTask and Memento for reminders. If Things feels enough competition they’ll adapt (or die).
I have utilized the new Reminders app in place of 2Do. While I didn’t mind syncing to Dropbox, it’s one less service I have to worry about being “compromised.” Not that any of my stuff on that service is top secret
I love Things and use it heavily. But after iOS 13 is out I’ll take a look at Reminders. It will have limitations vs Things but Things has limitations that annoy me that have never been addressed. So I think it will be good to do a comparison.
@MitchWagner you said the new reminders has attachments, can you explain it a little better? I’m curious. I think I’m going to like the new reminders a lot.
And of course, it can be a both/and. . I use Things for my usual task and project management. But if there’s something I need to add to my shopping list? That goes in Reminders. If there’s a quick one-off thing that I need to do — particularly if I need to be reminded at a specific time or specific place — that also goes in Reminders.
Playing with the beta… the biggest deterrent for regular Reminders use (for me) is the lack of Projects. Sure you can have a task with sub-tasks but it’s still not quite there for larger scale projects. Things is still a more streamlined day-to-day task manager to me. To make Reminders work I have to store my larger projects in another app, which I’m not fond of.
Like @acavender, I do make use of both though. There are times when I need a location-based reminder (very infrequently) and storing shopping lists. But aside from that everything else goes into Things. To each their own though. Whatever works for you.
There’s no “completing” a list in Reminders. You can’t even Archive. You have to delete it to remove it from view and then you lose all history of it. It’s also harder to keep documentation of the project in a list in Reminders. There’s no notes field for the List.
It’s the same issue with 2Do and GoodTask. At least with those apps you can Archive or Hide the older “lists”.
I am grandfathered in to 2Do, but just can’t deal with the way it works.
That said, there’s no perfect task manager, and people who are deep into using these apps tend over time to have different needs (or find problems with their old procedures) which tends to result in App Churn. Searching for the chimera of task manager perfection is a trap - I’ve learned that being a satisficer and working around ‘good enough’ apps saves the trouble of constantly evaluating products to maximize productivity (which never happens).
So, if you use Things (or anything else), use it to its utmost and find workarounds for new OS changes when they come, after they come.
Interesting read. I’m a maximizer for sure but I’m continuing to move toward satisficer as time goes on. It’s just a better way to live. But it can be hard sometimes for sure when doubt creeps in.
At least one good reply in that thread already…
. I use Things for my usual task and project management. But if there’s something I need to add to my shopping list? That goes in Reminders. If there’s a quick one-off thing that I need to do — particularly if I need to be reminded at a specific time or specific place — that also goes in Reminders.
To each their own though. Whatever works for you. 
