ForumsQuestionsPros/Cons of Alternatives to Toodledo.
Pros/Cons of Alternatives to Toodledo.
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Purveyor |
Posted by Duo:
The introduction of advertising for free users (so far), the large price increases for new and existing users, the moving of relied upon features from one tier to the next for new and existing users, the shoddy development practices, the poor management of the changes around pricing, features and privacy, the lack of understanding of the product, the product space and its users, long-time users abandoning ship... I don't think this story is moving towards "Happily ever after" but I hope I'm wrong. 1. Advertising Aaron said: We are not adding advertising to Toodledo and repeated that statement in his rebuttal of Security/Privacy Alert. 2. Price increases for existing users Sam said: Please note that there is no plan to increase the price of current paying users. 3. Shoddy development practices Disruptive use of Ctrl-click to multi-select followed by unintuitive use of the letter "L". 4. Poor management of the changes around pricing Confusing announcements about the pricing structure and a lack of understanding of what "grandfathered" means. Plus, no improvements to the iPhone app even though on July 25, 2018, Sam said that updating the app is a priority. According to the App Store, the last update to the app was on Jan 25, 2017 and it was a minor fix. The most recent feature improvement was on Nov 21, 2015, which was "Updates Habits with Alarms and Schedules". And still no support for Apple Watch. In Sam's first post, Future Plans, he talked about making "Toodledo the best damn productivity tool out there" but almost nothing has changed in the past 10 months. He also said that he would be "'super active in this forum" and then disappeared after less than two months. This message was edited May 10, 2019. |
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AA |
Purveyor's conclusions sound like the anti-definition of "good vibes".
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MNBLOCKHEAD |
I'm up for renewal in less than a month. I hate to move, but I'm finding that I would be more effective if I keep it simple. There are some features like context and goals in Toodledo that are nice but I can live without. I use Evernote for notes, never used Toodledo for notes.
What I most need is something with a well-developed Amazon Alexa skill and also multi-folder syncing with iPhone reminders. I want to say "Alexa add to my call list: John Doe to discuss Acme deal" I don't want everything going to one folder that I then have to organize. Also the sync with iPhone reminders is awful. It takes all my items from multiple lists and dumps them into one unfiled bucket. If I want to make heavy use of virtual assistants, which I do, I've concluded that I need to look to tools other than Toodledo. |
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MNBLOCKHEAD |
Well, after spending quite a bit of time looking at competing products, I'm finding not handle Alexa and Siri integration well.
At this point, I'm wondering whether I'm making things too complicated. I'm not using many of Toodledo's advanced features and find I spend too much time fiddling with how things are organized. Ultimately, I need a simple task list organized according to the Getting Things Done methodology, plus context-based shopping lists. And, for the lattering, I'm thinking a single shared (with my wife) shopping list is sufficient with the name of the store at the beginning of the title for items that I definitely want to buy from a specific store. iPhone reminders is sufficient for that. If I use iPhone reminders, I can easily integrate/sync my reminders with Alexa using IFTTT. The main limitation is that there isn't a great way to view iPhone reminders on a PC. I could just use reminders on iCloud. But not big fan of the iCloud website. I could just use my phone for all task management, I suppose. It is too bad that Toodledo doesn't have a proper sync with Reminders. If Toodledo could act as a hub for Reminders and Alexa to-do and shopping lists, it would be worth the annual subscriptions. Especially since I do like the habits feature. I also like to use Toodledo lists, but I could live without both. |
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cjbg |
I'm of the view that my time is worth more than the price difference between free and $100 per year providing that the productivity enhancement tool actually helps me be more productive. I came across M's post from 2018 about www.amazingmarvin.com. There is a lot to like: comprehensive choice of strategies and configuration options, import tools for Toodledo and others, versions for web or offline or mobile, clear roadmap of future features, very active development, responsive to user feature requests etc. I'm playing with a 30 day trial account and liking it more and more. There is a very effective behavioral flavor to the tool that I think will help people deal with the nexus of their own work style, work load and constant stream of incoming information and action items. I would be interested in hearing what others think about Amazing Marvin.
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GSP1963 |
@cjbg: This is the first time I've heard of Amazing Marvin. I just looked over their website and I'm favorably impressed. I like their design philosophy. This is the first todo list manager I've seen in a long time that seems significantly better than the competition. I like the procrastination indicators and the weekly time-blocking features, in particular.
The Marvin team seems to be engaged and very active in developing the application. It looks like a great team. Currently, I'm using the free version of Remember the Milk. An RTM Pro account costs $40/year. I see that Marvin costs $96/year (or $12/month). I'll give the 30-day free trial of Marvin a try to see if it's worth it to me to pay the higher price. Similar to what you've stated, if a task manager can genuinely take my productivity up a notch or two long-term, paying another $5/month or so is not an issue. (I've already made the decision to move on from Toodledo, sadly.) Thanks for the tip. This message was edited Jun 01, 2019. |
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MNBLOCKHEAD |
The Amazing Marvin looks, well, Amazing. I'll definitely give it a test drive.
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cspence |
I was a long time Toodledo user for many years.
Generally strong user and happy with the application (other than the old interface), until this was sold to the new owners. No need to rehash the frustrations that I had, similar to most long-time users. I have migrated to ToDoist - many stronger features than toodledo. You can recreate many of the custom lists thought the various tags and filters. Also have iphone, android and apple watch applications that work fairly well. It gets used frequently every day. Recently on this site, learned about Amazing Marvin. Really interesting and innovative approach to managing tasks and priorities. Nicely designed and very actively updated. Still in my trial phase, but very favorable impressed. For anyone looking at options, add this to your list close to the top. I had tried many of the different options - computer-based, phone-based, web-based. This is the most interesting out of the bunch. https://amazingmarvin.com/ New user and still learning. You are able to bring across your data from many platforms, including toodledo and toodoist. Still in the trial mode, but this has real potential. |
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daniel.redman |
Hey guys, I paid for the subscrition (renewed) and it is saying that I am still on the free account - and I cant contact Toodledo as I cant access tickets!!! HELP
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Michael_49 |
Hey Daniel,
It took me forever to find the support ticket location...and I'm still waiting for a reply (3 days). Anyway, go to Account Center > Info Center > Resources "Contact Us" > "Create a support ticket" link at the very bottom right https://www.toodledo.com/info/ticket.php Good Luck... |
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cjbg |
re. Amazing Marvin
So, after about a ten days in trial with Marvin, I purchased a lifetime subscription to give the developers the support that I think this fine offering deserves. I guess I could have waited until the end of the generous 30 day trial but Marvin had taken over from Toodledo so time to commit. For those primarily interested in personal productivity, I think Amazing Marvin is definitely worth trying out today and check out the future feature list and roadmap: https://community.amazingmarvin.com/roadmap |
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greginfla_ |
Has anyone looked at ClickUp? I was studying the amazing Marvin app and saw a video comparing the two.....this looks extremely promising (click up)
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Purveyor |
@greginfla,
Here's the link to the video: ClickUp vs Marvin: Comparison Take a look at the Toodledo topic in the General Off Topic Chit-Chat forum. A few ClickUp links: List of features ClickUp 2.0 Beta Roadmap Chrome extension This message was edited Jun 21, 2019. |
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greginfla_ |
Posted by Purveyor:
@greginfla, Here's the link to the video: ClickUp vs Marvin: Comparison Take a look at the Toodledo topic in the General Off Topic Chit-Chat forum. A few ClickUp links: List of features ClickUp 2.0 Beta Roadmap Chrome extension thanks Purveyor, I think I am super excited about clinkup (custom fields; teams), but man is the interface slow or is this just me. Painfully slow. To make sure it wasn't my computer I did log in to toodledo and it worked as normal. |
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greginfla_ |
nevermind sort of..... tried it on chrome and it worked much better (still a little slow). I engaged with their chat tech support (and they responded in 5 mins) and stated they don't support IE.
Purveyor, you a long time user... two years longer than my 10 years of using toodledo, did you switch to Clickup? |
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Purveyor |
Yeah, I've been around for a while ...
I have a ClickUp subscription but I'm just playing around with the Beta 2.0 version and I'm waiting for the final release. Even then, I think I'll be using it mainly for work projects. The customer support is top-notch. For my personal tasks, I've moved to Remember the Milk (RTM) and I'm very happy with it. Took less than 5 minutes to migrate the data (export and import), and about an hour to re-create and arrange my Saved Searches, which are called Smart Lists in RTM. I'm using the desktop app (which is practically identical to the website) and the iPhone app. I also sync occasionally with Outlook as a backup, and for different ways of viewing my tasks. |
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Joyce |
Holy toledo Amazing Marvin is slick! I may have found my new home. I also like aspects of todoist, I've gotten that well set up now that I know how to set recurring tasks, I can strip out the recurrence and add it back easily enough. I have both places set up with nearly everything...We'll see how Marvin goes over the next month.
Umm, Hold the phone, Marvin is expensive! Thats a big downside HUGE So you can be billed monthly for $12 $144 a year. You can buy it for a year and it's $96 or you can buy it for a lifetime (theirs or yours) for $300 The plus side is if you drop the 300 smakers you'll be done, I'm just not sure my other half will be thrilled. This message was edited Jun 24, 2019. |
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Eric |
Two quick questions:
1) Can one move one's data easily from Marvin elsewhere. If there is anything that I have learned from this and other (I'm looking at you google) software abandonments, it that it is good to be able to move on. Looking at the website, it looks like data can be save as a zipped json file, which in principle, perhaps transportable, but I don't think its a standard input today 2) Any idea the size of the existing userbase? With an organization of two, I worry about the risk of Marvin closing down. That said, the onboarding is incredibly slick, and I suspect that with some work, I can replace/improve my workflow with it. At the same time, RTM seems like a stable alternative. |
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cjbg |
Eric,
Re. your questions about Marvin: 1) The export data function outputs a .csv file that could be used to create an import file to match the layout requirements for importation into another program if an "import from Marvin backup" option was not available. This might not be an easy process if the data includes many projects with sub-projects and tasks. 2) User base: there are currently 602 members of the private Facebook group for users and it seems to be growing steadily. The Facebook group is active with experienced users answering questions and the developers chiming in as well. |
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cjbg |
Joyce, my spouse told me I'd be forgiven for spending the money for a lifetime Marvin membership if I would stop going on and on about how great Marvin is. :) Here is a discount coupon posted by Michal Polat on You Tube:
For an extra free month use the coupon code: TXMICHAL. This message was edited Jun 27, 2019. |
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