

Clear: doing for To Do lists what Dropbox did for file syncing - pascal07
http://www.elezea.com/2012/02/clear-app-review/

======
zavulon
I feel like there's a massive PR campaign to get us to check out this app,
which is seemingly a yet another todo list without any kind of syncing (which
automatically means I won't even bother checking it out). Can someone who did
buy the app say whether the hype is justified?

~~~
xbryanx
Agreed.

Requirements for any todo app I'd use:

* Sync across all devices and computers

* Desktop version

~~~
dserodio
Requirements for any todo app, and specially for one that claims to be the
"Dropbox of todo lists"

------
csomar
1\. There is a focus on the design of the app. The App didn't change what To
Do lists are. It implemented them with a fancy interface imitating a gradient
metro style.

2\. Dropbox is about simplicity and syncing. Simplicity, we are can argue. But
where is the syncing? It syncs with what? How? I don't bother with an app that
don't sync to the cloud. But don't compare to DropBox. Misleading title.

To-Do lists are broken. If many people have agreed (me included) that they
don't work for them, so re-inventing them is useless. We need something
different, focused more on the long term growth rather than killing tasks.

I'm using an Excel spreadsheet that records my performance as a Stock Index. I
follow the stock and update with real values (perceived values of productivity
and real work getting done). I'm looking for patterns to sync between
perceived achievements and the stock indexes. I might work an App for that.

~~~
ed209
> To-Do lists are broken

mine isn't. I have a whiteboard with magnetic white strips that I can reorder.
Each strip with it's own task.

"if only I had an amazing to-do list app, then I'd get stuff done". No, you
wouldn't. No matter how good the app is, it will never actually do the task
for you. That's the part that needs solving, the actual doing part. If you're
good at doing, then you'll nuke a to-do list in any format.

Unless you hook my to-do list into something like task-rabbit where a "clean
the car" task magically happens after I confirmed a $20 premium at the time of
adding the task, then I don't think that changing the way I input and reorder
tasks is going to make a difference to be me being lazy.

~~~
csomar
I do the same thing, but it rather manages my current time and the short term
of things. It's work-focused too. It won't remember you for example, that
little task, when you are driving.

~~~
ed209
Mine is mostly work focused too. i always found that if I forget a task while
I'm out, then I'd equally forget to look on my phone for outstanding tasks.

Shopping lists are just pen/paper. And if it's important enough, I trust my
brain with the info :)

I guess the only other case is google calendar alerts for time sensitive to-
dos like "cancel LoveFilm subscription by today"...

------
joblessjunkie
Dropbox takes something hard and makes it easy.

A to-do list is already easy.

------
ivankirigin
My todo list is a text file in Dropbox, edited on mobile with plaintext :)

~~~
nik_0_0
For some reason my iOS device can't edit a .txt file from Dropbox... silly :(
Evernote for me.

~~~
chmike
Plaintext works fine. There was a bug with text files from windows causing it
to crash. Make sure the text file is unix/macos format (end of line
difference).

~~~
nik_0_0
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll grab that application. Seems silly to me
that the Dropbox app doesn't contain that feature as standard.

------
hopeless
Actually, I hated the design.

The vertical pinch is awkward and if you try a horizontal or diagonal pinch
(which is more natural) then it deletes or completes a task. Also, scrolling
up too quickly suddenly puts you in new task mode.

And while there's some innovation (or experimentation) with the user
interaction, there's been no real innovation which how a todo list should
function. In this respect, I much prefer TeuxDeux. It's still clean and
unfettered by tags and descriptions etc but adding tasks to particular days
gives you a really good overview of you day/week. It also removes the
resistance when you start the day because you're not thinking "what shall I
work on today" or "what shall I cherrypick from this humongous list".

------
sunchild
I wish more apps would get out of their own way and employ standard UIKit. I'm
all for experimenting with UI on a new-ish platform like iOS, but the amount
of parallel energy expended on checklist UIs is just depressing to me – esp.
when the standard Cocoa libraries are more than adequate. There are just so
many cases where turning the UI upside down is counterproductive.

~~~
83457
...but then it would be just like an iOS todo list tutorial app

------
epaga
"Clear feels a lot more Metro than iOS. Not that that's bad." - @agnoster

I find that a very insightful remark. I always did like Metro's UI "feel" -
simple and sleek with clear edges and clean colors on a black background.
Clear is a near-perfect execution of that concept. Very inspiring stuff.

------
chucknelson
The responsiveness is great, and the interface is nice, but the fact that you
have to create all lists on the device is a significant limitation.

This is where Trello, Evernote, etc. have an advantage - it's a lot easier for
me to make a large list (like a grocery list) on a PC via a website, and then
just use my phone or whatever while I'm shopping or for minor edits.

------
frankus
It's definitely fun to use, but since it's gotten such glowing press, I'll be
a negative nancy and point out the flaws :).

The biggest one is that it's hard or impossible to do a few important things
with the same hand that's holding the phone. The pinch-open gesture can be
worked around by adding and rearranging items, but the pinch-close gesture (to
go up a level) is pretty near impossible.

The other rookie mistake is that because eight items fit precisely on the
screen, you can't tell if there are more items below the fold without trying
to scroll (and they don't flash the scroll indicators when the list appears).

Finally, it would be nice if there were a setting to show the status bar. I
might want to know what time it is while I'm organizing my to-do list.

------
taskstrike
Does this sync data over icloud or some other cloud? Would this integrate with
my iphone or ical?

If it's only a mobile tool. It becomes very limited.

It's difficult to build a great interface but even harder to build a great
product.

------
squarecat
Ambiguous headlines: Doing for readers what George Bush did for the world

------
tlear
There is atleast half a dozen TODO apps on the store that are superior.
TODO.txt Pocket Lists Wunderlist Producteev.. I am sure there are another 50
that I never heard off.

------
Lewisham
Having gone back to Things after walking in the ToDo wilderness for a year or
two (the lack of cloud sync was killing me), it seems to me that there is a
necessary complexity to _real_ ToDo list organization which Things' GTD-
inspired interface does very well.

The main distinction is that you really have to have a way of saying "These
are the tasks for today" or "These are the tasks I can do now" and _clear out
the other ones_. Too many of these new ToDo lists create a sort of
productivity anxiety, shouting in your face ToDo items which are not
completable yet, or not feasibly completable today.

I haven't found an app which decently replicates Things' Today view, where
ToDo items you said you'd do Today appear, and if you can't do them, you just
click "Not Today" and they'll come back tomorrow (or you can schedule them if
you have a better date idea).

I'm now in the Things Cloud Sync beta, and can't talk about it due to an NDA,
but cloud sync for Things is coming, and it'll be great when it arrives.

~~~
Splines
I use Trello like this. I have a list marked "To do (unplanned)", "To do (this
week)", "Doing (today)", "Done (yyyy-mm-dd)".

At the end of each week I archive the last list and shuffle items around
depending on what happened that week.

------
jcurbo
I'm not a big fan of gestures _purely_ to control or input to an app -
gestures are not discoverable at all by new users. Looking at this page I see
that a lot of things are only (?) controllable by a big list of gestures I
have to remember. I pretty much closed the page right there - I'll stick to
the Reminders app and my text-file list in Simplenote, thanks.

~~~
nchlswu
I've personally been very surprised at the lack of restraint some people have
with regard to gestures. Gestures are nice and all but as you said, they're
hardly discoverable. People make the claim that gestures are intuitive, but
aside from he native pinch, pull and swipes, gestures are hardly that.

------
tuananh
The app offers nothing except gesture when compare with Reminders.

------
gutini
Some are calling this the future of interfaces. As a designer, I'm curious as
to how you would prototype these interactions. Are there tools out there that
could do this? Seems to me you need to have out of this world design and
development skills to bring this from idea to app.

~~~
hammerbrostime
I really can't immagine that hidden non-standard gestures ever becoming the
future of interfaces. Its beautiful, but wtf how am I supposed to remember how
to use it?

------
worthier
Why not use a pen on the back of an envelope?

I suspect that searching for the perfect to-do app is a _displacement
activity_.

<http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?DisplacementActivity>

------
LukeRB
Though I'm blown away by it's simplicity, design and speed, Clear's biggest
challenge (beyond syncing) is intuitiveness. You can read my thoughts about
the app on Quora at [http://www.quora.com/Clear-iPhone-app/How-could-the-
Clear-iP...](http://www.quora.com/Clear-iPhone-app/How-could-the-Clear-iPhone-
app-be-improved/answer/Luke-Bornheimer)

tl;dr Almost nothing is intuitive and the interface will be jarring/polarizing
to the (average) user.

------
fredley
Any.DO is an excellent alternative with a similar UX-oriented approach. It
also syncs with Google Tasks. iOS, Android and web.

------
mikelbring
Direct link to the App home page: <http://www.realmacsoftware.com/clear/>

------
Maro
Evernote already did that.

This is a nifty UI feature that the Evernote guys can add to their iPhone app,
if they want to...

------
jorkos
I played with it last night. The UI is really intuitive and the model makes
sense - worth a dollar.

------
spinchange
Stay Useful fills this niche for me _and_ stays in sync with my iPhone and
Chrome browsers.

------
twiceaday
Why do I get the feeling that this stupid little app is going to keep being
shoved in my face?

------
wdr1
It looks pretty, but, honestly, I can't see it getting me to leave OmniFocus.

------
oxxx
Except Dropbox is multiplatform, which is essential to its success imo.

------
MatthewPhillips
I like it. Seems doable in HTML/js, I might work on a clone.

------
asselinpaul
Talking about Dropbox, dropbox syncing would be good, no?

------
thomaslutz
Why is it better than Wunderlist?

------
chj
i just hate the theme, perhaps just me.

------
zbuc
Why does every damn developer have to make a todo list application nowadays?

The "hot app" lately has been these supposed productivity apps, e.g.
Wunderlist, Evernote, Clear, Document Cloud, kippt, ...

It's getting a little tiring :(

~~~
fooandbarify
Document Cloud doesn't strike me as a "productivity app", at least not in the
same vein as Evernote and Wunderlist (not familiar with Clear or kippt). As
far as I know, it doesn't incorporate "to do" functionality at all. It's
targeted at journalists and (presumably) provides real value by helping
analyze, research and annotate supporting documents.

~~~
zbuc
I stand corrected, what they're doing is pretty cool. I was under the
impression that it was just an application to save highlighted passages from
articles but after poking around it's obvious that it's much more.

------
its_so_on
If every company had 'creating an internal to-do list app' as its number one
(and initially only, for obvious reasons) priority, then we would soon end up
with a natural "survival of the fittest" scenario. Pretty soon there would be
a victorious company with a to-do list app the likes of which the world has
never known. The minute they make that public, we will have a productivity
singularity. I would pay five thousand dollars for that winning app: the to-do
list app behind the next Google or Facebook. /s

