ForumsThird-Party ApplicationsInformant went subscription and was sold.. any alternatives ?
Informant went subscription and was sold.. any alternatives ?
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Ummagumma |
So, Informant - which I used since 2003 - went to a $25 per year subscription & was sold to a new owner.
That's one subscription too many. I am paying for Toodledo but I've been using it for free enough to feel that I owe them something in return, plus I get to access it from any computer via web interface and get the same features. And I can downgrade without losing most of the essential functionality. Any suggestions as on what other calendar application would support Toodledo the best, both on the iPhone and iPad ? So far, I have / had / tried the following: PlanBe - it's a nice calendar but doesn't support Star feature, or any other way to designate a task to show on today's date in Calendar without changing it's due date ActionAgenda - supports many Toodledo features but has a half-baked feel (can assign start dates but can't seemingly use them; no support for TD subtasks; very cluttered / confusing interface) Calendar 5 from Readdle - assigning a star changes due date to today, irreversibly. That's unacceptable. 2Do - the calendar module on iPad is very basic, and on iPhone non-existent. Any other software I can try ? Basically, what I need is (a) star or other way to show any task on today without changing due date (b) support for subtasks. Everything else is icing on the cake. Thanks ! |
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Ummagumma |
So, it seems I am the only one who has a problem with Informant charging $25 per year to use Toodledo's $15 per year features.
I have no problems paying for the services I use, but given the overall choice of decent calendar apps, and all the money I've already paid to Webis over the years, them suddenly going a full-blown subscription mode on loyal users make me want to look at alternatives. Unfortunately, the closest alternative that I found (CalenGoo) lets me use most of the task managing methods I use today - but via a very different set of tools - i.e. not Toodledo. The only other two calendar apps that sync to Toodledo - at least the ones I found - are PlanBe and Calendar 5. PlanBe hasn't been updated in a long time, and does not support a Star feature or any other "today" method. Calendar 5 has what I consider a fatal flaw - when you add a star to a task, it changes it's due date to today and the original due date is lost. So, it seems the choice is to either drop Informant and Toodledo (even though I paid two years in advance) and change my methods to fully utilize Calengoo / desktop Outlook combination; or pay another $25 for Informant, every year. (I can still use v4 that I paid for, but don't know how long it will stay active or useful). This is not about the money - it would be a wash for me the first year - but more about not being forced into a subscription model by the company I've already paid money to, without being offered any great new features. At this point, I think I'll go Calengoo / Outlook, even if it means not using Toodledo - as much as I like it. |
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angler |
Fanatic CEO looks like to insist the current pricing of Informant 5. Currently there are only PlanBe, Action Agenda and Informant support Toodledo GTD synchronizing. I don't see Calendar 5 can be synchronized with Toodledo. Toodledo app works nicely in iPhone, but have to use separate native Calendar app to view calendar events. PlanBe maybe my alternative to Informant if Fanatic does not change the pricing of Informant 5.
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Ummagumma |
PlanBe is actually really nice but has no "today" feature and it's the deal breaker for me - I must be able to create a work list for the day without moving actual task due date. There's a workaround - use Start Date as "Today" but it's clunky. Also, PlanBe hasn't really been updated in a while. I get a feeling it may turn into abandonware.
Action Agenda did not work for me because the interface was beyond cluttered. Luckily I got a chance to try it on a friends' iPhone first. This was simply not something I'd like to look at every day. Calendar 5 - I thought it synced with Toodledo ? Perhaps not. The star feature changing due date was the show stopper anyway. Out of these three, a single change on PlanBe part (support for Star feature, or an option to show the top priority tasks on today) would've made it my app of choice to work with Toodledo. It has a refreshing simplicity of interface. At any rate, there's precious few applications that sync with Toodledo, and for those of us who must have their tasks integrated with their calendar (and not just in the form of calendar feed) it's not a good setup. This message was edited Feb 01, 2017. |
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Ummagumma |
So, I feel I have to abandon Toodledo yet again. Bummer.
I *must* have my tasks and calendar integrated in one program. It's very easy to lose track of things when you have a busy schedule and must look in two different programs to see your workload for the day. At the present time, the only calendar choices available for Toodledo on iPad are Informant, PlanBe and ActionAgenda. Informant is $25/year on top of $15/year to use Toodledo's expanded functionality (primarily subtasks). I am not paying $40 yearly subscription to get subtasks. There's plenty of other ways to get similar functionality. PlanBe doesn't support any of the expanded functionality, might as well not bother with Toodledo at all. ActionAgenda has an extremely cluttered and confusing interface with tiny font and hard to see the difference between tasks and appointments. It's just not something I can use daily while trying to get through a myriad other tasks. There's plenty of great calendar programs that allow integrating tasks with calendar, at least one (CalenGoo) has a way of setting up a "today" feature - but they all sync with either iOS Reminders or Google Tasks. Toodledo is really held back by the lack of decent calendar integration. The sad thing is, it should be far easier to design a basic calendar with a few useful views, than it is to design a decent task management system. It shouldn't be hard for them to add calendar functionality to their mobile program. But I doubt this would ever happen. |
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daniel |
Hi @Ummagumma
I feel your pain. I am using the current verion of PIA i.e. the one that hasn't been updated in a year. It does have Toodledo Sync which works. I am also using Gysncit. Fanatical ( about iPhones) has only recently made it a priority to product refresh this version. So to be honest, I would wait and see what the new features are like and how good the support is ( giving the forums were closed down). I gather the one for the iPhone is feature rich. I am guessing that the recent the business was sold is they can't have made much money with infrequent major product releases at $10 - I know they were also plagued by the "download the pirated copy for free brigade" . Sad fact, is to get the major investment in a product we will need to pay more. Products like Trello, GetPocket et al. seem to go with the subscription model. Like you I did look at products out there and even now they don't seem much better than PI. This message was edited Mar 20, 2017. |
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Ummagumma |
Hi @daniel,
For now at least, I decided to move all of my tasks to Reminders & use Calengoo and Outlook custom views to get the basic functionality I need ("Today" feature, Start time, and basic tagging). The advantage is that I can create (copy from email) and work with my work and home tasks directly from Outlook, without going through a web interface or emailing tasks. The disadvantage is, of course, that I can't use Toodledo even though I paid two years in advance. But I am not paying $25 / year on top of this for a buggy Informant 5, especially now that they sold it to the new owner. He just doesn't strike me as a trustworthy person. The whole rollout of the new Informant, info about sale, and new pricing structure felt rather shady and very poorly handled. And I am not sticking to v4 because I will be just postponing the inevitable. So, for now at least, I moved all of my tasks into Apple Reminders. Calengoo allows me to add tags and start dates to Reminders - the filters are not nearly as advanced as in Informant, but they work and sync to Outlook. There's no "Star" function but there's an option to show any task with Top priority on Today regardless of due date, which works just as well for me. And, of course, all of this can be replicated in Outlook using custom views. It also has some neat features that were not available in Informant. Floating appoinments (same as what the old Palm Calendar used to have), checklists inside calendar events that can be entered in Outlook using very simple natural language plaintext code (e.g. [ ] Buy bread, [ ] Buy milk in an Outlook event note will turn into checkboxes inside an event in Calengoo). Anyway... I'll be checking up on this thread and Toodledo in general in hope there's some new development, but for now, I'm afraid not having a decent choice of calendar apps that work with it makes it unusable for me. |
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daniel |
@Ummagumma
That sounds like a plan. The PIA sell from Webis hasn't yielded any improvements in support for PIA iMHO. The lack of alternatives shows nobody is making any real money out fo these apps. Interesting in what you say bout checklists as these are now implemented in lots of products. I had look at Trello and Office 365 Planner but these more useful for team project work so I was happy to go for 2 years with toodledo . I don't think I can do the bullet style check list in ToodleDo web or Android App? Adding a task from Outlook 2016 Desktop is an interesting thought yeah floating appts look good to. Daniel |
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Ummagumma |
Hi,
I believe there were checklists inside events possible in PI but it wasn't quick or easy to use. The biggest advantage of the way it's done in Calengoo is that it allows me to very quickly set up a checklist in any app using simple and logical plaintext tags, and then copy them to Outlook & I now have a checklist in my mobile client. I have set up several templates that I just keep reusing. Combined with floating appointments, it makes for a very decent system, the only thing missing is having the same ability inside individual tasks (right now the checklists exist inside events only). As to the bullet style checklist - not sure what you mean. The bulleted list, or the checklist with checkmarks that can be marked as done ? The latter is what I was talking about. In Toodledo, it can be replicated to an extent by using sub-tasks, although it's not as clean as having a checklist inside individual records. The other system that has the checklists in Wunderlist, but I don't use it due to the lack of start time support and no mobile calendars (that I know of) syncing with it. |
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Ummagumma |
So, since I've started the original conversation, I had to change from Toodledo to Outlook.com tasks. Informant was not worth $25/year to me, and no other calendar app that could sync with Toodledo matched my needs.
Recently, however, I gave 2Do another try and found out that in that time, they (or he ? it may be a single developer) had added a Calendar view to iPhone app. The view is extremely basic, but that's all I really need in a calendar - to see my meetings and create new ones, nothing fancy. So, 2Do is it for now. (I do hope he adds some very simple improvements to that calendar window, like making the font size user selectable, and adding a way to launch Apple Calendar from it). This message was edited Jun 20, 2017. |
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