

Cheddar - samsoffes
https://cheddarapp.com
A new simple to do list that instantly pushes changes to all of your devices. Cheddar supports Markdown and has tags. A free universal iPhone/iPad app and web app were just released.
======
ntkachov
Out of all the todo apps I've tried. Every time I go back to writing shit on a
white board.

I've timed myself. IT takes me about 6 seconds to write something on a
whiteboard. And about 10 to take a picture of it with my phone.

Compare that to the 20+ it takes for me to pull out my phone, open an app, get
into the list I want, and then type it out on a shitty little keyboard.

Until you make a note taking app that takes less time to use than a white
board, I'm gonna use the whiteboard.

~~~
smackfu
I use these small 5x8 yellow legal pads. Doesn't take up much space on my
desk, and you get 17 lines or so, which is generally plenty. If I need
multiple lists, I use multiple pages. Dead simple and fast. And it even allows
for multiple levels of completion, like I can mark an X next to an item for
when it's coded, then cross out the line when I test.

~~~
wyclif
My fave todo app is still todo.txt. Simple. Effective. Writable and readable
anywhere.

------
revorad
The comments on this thread are such an embarrassment. Someone's worked hard
on something for months, and people go and piss all over it.

If you don't think this is a useful or good app, you don't even have to look
at it. Just pass.

At least when someone launches a product, if you don't have anything
encouraging or constructive to say, it's best not to say anything.

It seems HN is suffering more and more from the "Why wasn't I consulted?"
angst - <http://www.ftrain.com/wwic.html>

~~~
mnicole
Why is honest criticism not allowed? Don't you _want_ to know why people are
averse to your service so you can perfect it, no less directly from the people
who would pay for it?

~~~
nalidixic
There's a difference between honest criticism and bashing someones hard work.
75% of the comments on this post are not honest criticism.

~~~
mnicole
With no-bullshit audiences that tell it like it is, you sometimes need to read
between the lines. I'm not condoning the behavior, but it is not foreign to HN
and something to consider before posting here.

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zoul
Dear God no, yet another pimped-up todo list? What does it do that the others
don’t?

~~~
btipling
When pg used a todo list as an example app to challenge email, this was to be
expected. A million todo apps everywhere. People have so little imagination.

~~~
guynamedloren
I don't think pg is to blame for this... todo list apps are inherently simple
to design and build. If anything, they're a great 'first app' for new or
aspiring developers, so a marketplace flooded with (many shitty) todo apps is
not surprising.

~~~
OzzyB
Indeed.

And the second is a Time Tracking app followed by a Project Management app.

------
munaf
Startup request: Please, someone come up with a todo/productivity/project
management system whose main feature is _motivation_ to use it, not just
technical versions of paper todo lists. I don't know if the solution is
necessarily technical. I've tried every major app and still rely on the
visceral impact of post-it notes next to my computer to get things done. I'd
love to switch to an app but nothing is actually making me use one.

~~~
kylebrown
Try the pomodoro technique (its just a 25-minute timer). I only tried it quite
recently, but its working great and quickly becoming a habit. I really
appreciate the no-nonsense approach which prevents any yak-shaving[1]. Its
simple on the most basic level so its compatibile with more the complex
systems like GTD, or task management / team collab apps.

1\. <http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/yak_shaving>

------
__mark__
Another TODO list app? When I looked at the website it seemed like the main
value proposition was that my TODO list will be everywhere. Countless apps
already do this though so I don't understand how this one is better.

------
kefs
> <strong>pushes to all of your devices</strong>

iDevices you mean.

~~~
SpikeX
There's never any Windows Phone love...

 _sigh_...

~~~
heretohelp
There's never any NetBSD clients for the apps I like...

 _sigh_

~~~
ibotty
... and what about palm pilot (or zaurus, n900)

~~~
reddit_clone
>zaurus

Brings back memories. I used to work on some of these devices for desktop
sync. (With Schedule+ no less. Damn, that dates me)

I have seen some Japan only devices with fabulous color screens. They were way
ahead of their time.

------
davidradcliffe
No official Android app in the works.
<https://twitter.com/cheddar/status/218385506533249027>

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callmeed
If any app category needed a parody video and site, it's to-do lists and
productivity.

Time to charge the camera batteries.

~~~
jgrahamc
I'll add it to Yellow Yellow's TODO list for when they come out of double
stealth: <http://doublestealth.blogspot.com>

~~~
J3L2404
"Currently we're in double stealth mode (the public doesn't know what we're
building and neither do we)."

Fun read.

------
mnicole
Only allows me the ability to create two lists for free? I'm not going to pay
for a service that can be replaced by Post-Its and the bevy of other
services/apps that do the same thing. Inability to sync lists with other users
is another reason. Friendly UI but that's about it.

Additionally -

Product Marketing 101: If you're competing in a space with [hundreds of]
others just like you, you need to have a shortlist of reasons why to choose
yours over the others before just dropping people into it.

You should also account for the amount of people visiting your site when you
launch so it isn't crawling when people try to sign up for it. I'm trying to
traverse the site right now to find where I can see a compare-and-contrast of
similar tools and it is useless.

Also just noticed the icon is basically Clear's -- another list/to-do app --
is that intentional? Surely we can find better ways of illustrating lists than
using a checkmark so people don't get confused.

~~~
Terretta
Plus, Reminders with its default list on (free) iCloud "magically" syncs with
all your (Apple) devices. Reminders adds geo fencing, recurrence, and other
great features. It's a surprisingly well designed competitor in this space.

Couple that with Fantastical on the Mac menu bar which now shows those same
iCloud Reminders and you have a slick solution.

------
huhtenberg
Seriously, Sam. Reword the brief to not say "magical". It's annoying at best
and insulting at worst. If it were ticking off "get milk" when you put a new
carton of milk in a fridge, _that_ could've passed for magical. Doing an auto
background sync is not, you are late by few years.

~~~
FuzzyDunlop
It might actually be magical, if you [mis-]read this:

 _It's just text. Type in the box. Press return. Done._

I'd love to complete all my tasks by typing in a box and pressing return.

------
novakinblood
Looks simple and clean but I already use "remember the milk" to do the same
thing. The landing page doesn't give enough convincing arguments to pull me
away.

~~~
RegEx
I'm a big RTM fan myself, although I'm honestly not too pleased with their
latest UI update on the iPhone. It's prettier, but not as snappy.

~~~
novakinblood
I agree about the UI update. It looks nice but feels clunky and I get
disoriented with all the swiping. It's too "swipey".

~~~
RegEx
Exactly. Having to swipe to get my list back on screen is less than ideal.

------
samarudge
While it's always nice to have a pretty frontend, why not use Google Apps or
Exchange reminders as a backend? Yet another account, yet another site,
disconnected and needing individual management. I use Exchange reminders, to
set it up I just add my Exchange account to my iPhone or Outlook and it's
done. It's not pretty but I don't have to remember another site

------
modarts
This is really great timing: I woke up this morning thinking "You know what I
_really_ need? Another todo app!"

------
julian55
I thought this was going to be about cheese but it's just another to do list.

------
encima
This is nothing new, there are a ton of good task syncing apps. What makes
this apple-specific app so much better? Oh, wait.

------
sammcd
Congrats on launching Sam!

~~~
samsoffes
Thanks Sam :)

------
citricsquid
A web interface? Hurrah! I don't like typing on my iPhone but find it handy
for storing information (eg: shopping lists) and when I went through trying to
find apps I couldn't locate any with a web interface so I would have to type
on my phone... I eventually gave up trying to find one.

Feedback specific to the website: If a user hasn't downloaded one of the apps
yet have the "apps" link from the footer in a more prominent place. I didn't
notice it at first and wondered how to find the app links.

Also the ability to login via the website would nice, so after logging in I
scan a QR code and it logs me in on my phone too, typing out my password on my
phone is an annoyance.

~~~
andrethegiant
If you view the page on iOS 6 beta, an app banner appears at the top of the
page, linking to the app store.

------
phil
I don't understand the hate in the comments. Two things:

1) The simplest applications are still hard to polish this much. In fact,
simple things can often hide some of the hardest design choices.

2) Three years ago, Twitter apps were the UI design playground of choice. Now
that they've told everyone not to write new clients, UI experimentation has
shifted to other applications. Compare Cheddar to Clear, for example. Both are
nominally to-do lists, both have carefully thought out custom interfaces, but
they express very different philosophies about software design.

------
Zaheer
How many task manager apps do we need? I've seen a huge influx of these apps
recently. Nevertheless great UI!

~~~
andrewcamel
Totally agree -- it'd be great to get a product comparison on the site to see
some feature differentiation laid out. Except for the nice UI, it looks like
just another to-do app.

------
choxi
I know there's a ton of todo apps out there, I've tried Remember the Milk,
Evernote, Wunderlist, Reminders.app, and probably a couple other iOS todo
apps.

I picked Wunderlist and have used that for a long time because it's on every
platform I care about (iPhone, iPad, and Mac) BUT it's absolutely horrible
about syncing content and I get duplicates and missing todos all the time. I
just tried out cheddar's "push" feature and it's actually enough for me to
leave Wunderlist.

Also the Markdown feature is awesome

------
knurdle
Always in Sync Instantly Everywhere*

*Except Android, Windows mobile, etc..

~~~
samsoffes
Browsers are everywhere :)

------
alaskamiller
Hackers love to make todo lists. It's like some musicians' work remixing pop
songs.

~~~
mikeryan
Ironically I've yet to find an online todo list I like. My favorite todo list
is a pad and a pen, next to my computer. I've not found a feature set in an
online tool that works better for me.

~~~
genwin
After too many years typing I can barely write, so it's Notepad or Wordpad for
me.

------
rubergly
Am I the only one who sees a clear, functional difference between "todo" and
"list" apps?

Todo apps: Any.do, Orchestra, 2Do, Do It Tomorrow, TeuxDeux

List apps: Clear, Cheddar, Listary

I always keep one of each one my phone, because they serve entirely different
purposes. While they both work by storing lists, there's a big difference for
me between tasks and items in a list. When I'm tracking tasks, I want things
organized based on timeframes (maybe also assigning priorities, due dates, or
categories), and an interface designed around that principle is always going
to do that better; you could use Clear or Cheddar to store "Today",
"Tomorrow", and "Soon" lists, but that's a poor hack. When I'm simply
maintaining a list of things to remember (e.g., grocery list, debts to
friends, items I need to buy after moving, songs to buy, 100 push-ups
program), all I want is several (separate) lists with items I can add, edit,
rearrange, and delete.

I currently use Any.do as my tasks app and Clear as my list app. I really like
the design of both of them, but I have reservations of both. Any.do takes a
very nice approach of sorting tasks into bins of Today, Tomorrow, This Week,
and Later, but aggressively bubbles tasks up (the idea is nice if Tomorrow
tasks moved into Today after a day, and This Week into Tomorrow after 6 days,
and Later always stayed in Later, but I've had to push the same tasks back
into Later and This Week 4+ times per week). Clear lacks syncing of any kind
-- this is extremely frustrating because it could easily hook into something
like SimpleNote. I really like the focus on syncing from Cheddar, but I have
major reservations about the subscription concept (even though experience
shows that I move between these apps frequently and will likely not need to
pay for many months, a subscription feels like a significant investment
whereas a <$5 app doesn't), and I find myself missing Any.do and Clear's
gestures.

~~~
dhucerbin
If you like apps with nice interface based on gestures check 30/30. In this
app you create tasks and asign time for them. Something like pomodoro
technique but time may vary.

[I downloaded any.do - like it!]

------
shanev
The design of this app looks awesome, but I don't think we need more todo apps
in the App Store. I have a huge list of app ideas with not enough time to
implement all of them. Every few weeks I see one of my ideas, done by someone
else, hit the top 25 of the App Store. If you're a talented developer there's
much more creative things you could be buliding.

~~~
akamaka
Sounds like you have a lot of great ideas. Can I have some? I'm a talented
developer, but I rarely ever use apps myself, so I'm short on ideas. I'll buy
you some beers if I make a few sales. :)

~~~
shanev
Sure, hit me up at my HN username @ gmail.

------
SwellJoe
I have a "todo" email in my drafts folder in GMail, I've been using this
method for years, and it has always synched up across all of my devices. I
used to do it with my regular IMAP email, which worked on my Sidekick, so this
process goes back nearly a decade. I've tried using stuff like Remember The
Milk, because people love it so much, but it just doesn't give me any benefit
and I have to internalize a new process, setup all my machines, etc.

The same is true of Evernote. Email drafts are searchable and available on all
my devices, so I just keep my notes there, too.

If I wanted to get fancy, I could make a folder just for todo lists and one
for notes. But, I rarely have more than one active list at a time, and notes
being searchable makes it easy to find the one I need when I need it.

------
dag11
There is much incentive for you to make an Android version of Cheddar, too.
The reason why is there's already plenty of similar task apps for iOS, but
good task management apps are lacking on Android.

~~~
shahidhussain
Any.do not work for you? <http://www.any.do/>

~~~
dag11
Any.do works fairly well. I like its Chrome extension. However, its syncing is
_very_ delayed, which bothers me.

~~~
juliano_q
Have you tried Tasks? I used Any.do, it is good but I like Tasks better. Maybe
you should give it a shot.
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.teamtasks.t...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.teamtasks.tasks.paid&feature=search_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwxLDEsImNoLnRlYW10YXNrcy50YXNrcy5wYWlkIl0).

------
brandoncapecci
To-do app: Yawn. Stupid name: double yawn. There has only been one moderately
innovative app in this space and it was Clear. Clearly, the space is now
beyond saturated.

------
peterhajas
Looks really great. I love the idea behind instantly keeping things up to date
on all devices.

I can't wait to try the Mac App mentioned on the Support page -
<https://cheddarapp.com/support>. I hope it fits in a small horizontal space,
so that it can be always open (much like a Twitter client).

Good looking stuff. Excited to see if I can incorporate it into my workflow.

~~~
antr
+1 on the Mac App.

Looks like Cheddar is going to replace Wunderlist for me. 6Wunderkinder
haven't updated their iPad app in ages, and the non-retina graphics makes
their product unattractive.

------
erickhill
I must have tried over 10 different apps for keeping track of simple notes and
tasks. I finally landed on Evernote (and emailing myself) mostly due to the
sync issues across multiple devices. If this works similarly without all of
the extra whistles and bells, I'd be pretty happy. The nice clean interface is
encouraging.

~~~
induscreep
Try Producteev

------
sophacles
Sweet, it's completely useless! I can't dump a task from command line or vim.
Can't script it to pull things to the calendar automatically. Can't send an
email to put a task directly into it. Can't dump tasks to a text todo list to
put at the top of the code or document im writing to remember what I need as I
write.

Will not use. And, even if those features show up, won't consider due to lack
basic thought in initial design.

I've said before and I'll say it again: todo's are a functionality that are
only useful when broadly accessible from many different apps and contexts.
Your app (for any your) is mostly useless to me.

Edit: I don't get all the hate this post is receiving. Is it because I didn't
wrap it in sugar? Is it because I listed the things I would actually consider
paying for? Or is it just because I'm disagreeing with some startup and that's
against the local religion?

~~~
antiterra
First, saying it's completely useless is complete hyperbole. You can enter to
do items through an application or web interface. That is a use. It may not be
a novel use or a use that interests you in any way, but it's still a use. It's
a disappointing fact, but the truth is that command line integration,
scripting or a public API are not particularly mainstream features in an app.

Next, it would seem pretty fanatical to say "this app does everything I want
to, but because the features weren't there in the first version, I refuse to
use it." If the new functionality is well-integrated and not simply shoe-
horned in, would does the first version of the product have any relevance at
all?

~~~
sophacles
Well a team that decides to build a clone of something that exists hundreds of
times over, without thinking to even mention that more features are on the
way, probably doesn't have the ability properly add features in the future.
They show a complete lack of thought towards innovation or product usefulness,
only the ability to poorly copy something. Therefore I'm not going to waste my
time following them, and instead give attention to one of the other 100 todo
apps that shows the potential for actually becoming useful to me.

------
stephanimal
I would just like to note, that as a human I can only store a finite number of
passwords in my brain and would love if web apps like these would at least
provide OAuth with another identity provider (gmail, etc.) as an option.

------
ken
Given the recent exploits of other popular web services, I'm curious to hear a
bit more about your security model. The privacy policy makes it sound as
though all non-credit-card info is transmitted and stored in plaintext.

------
rvid
Here's what I'd like to see - A Todo app, calendar and goal tracker all rolled
in one, with a clean UI and multi-platform sync. That's all the productivity I
need!

------
fcoury
Anyone else experiencing a lot of bugs with Cheddar? I mark an item done on my
iPhone, web UI doesn't sync. Now I create a new list, it doesn't show.

Still early stage?

------
spne
Is there any way to add a date or deadline to a task? I've been having issues
with Wunderlist syncing between devices, but due dates are key.

------
jamesjyu
Small nit: on the bottom phone, the text "Simple, just text" is horribly
kerned. Otherwise, the product page looks great!

~~~
ryantownsend
And randomly a different serif font. The line-height on the actual app's
UIToolbar title is a bit too much too, should be slightly higher up, imo.

------
kennywinker
Looks pretty similar to my current fav: <http://teuxdeux.com/>

------
changdizzle
i think this is great - few questions for you:

\- is there any way to altogether delete tasks? looks like you can only
archive \- are there any plans to have an osx app? i was just looking for
something like this yesterday for my MBP

------
andrewguenther
Seems almost identical to Fetchnotes, but with worse device support.

~~~
techx2501
Or Gmail Tasks

------
rane
App store reviews sound like they've been solicited.

------
jenius
Something really bothers me about the design of this app... definitely not
trying to be a hater here, but the color, font, spacing... everything seems a
little off to me.

------
gyardley
The 'oh no, not another todo list' comments on this are hilarious - and I
suspect Sam will get also get a kick out of them, as he deposits his checks.

Sam, congratulations on your launch.

------
eragnew
This looks great. Will try it out for iphone.

------
john-n
Maybe tweak volume on video? (cant hear it)

------
damian2000
YAFTDL (yet another effing to-do list).

------
jonny_eh
No trademark issues with CheddarGetter?

------
wildmXranat
Where's Clippy when you need it to tell you to hit backspace when writing yet
another todo list app.

------
thom
+1 for delicious cheese.

~~~
donerKebab
Let me guess, you're American.

Not that cheddar can't be a good cheese, but on the other side of the pond,
cheddar is really the most basic cheese.

~~~
thom
I did wonder why the app was orange, though, so I assume that's a symptom of
the American cheese gap.

