Actions by Moleskine Studio

The series apps are really elegant but their functions are almost the same as system calendar and reminder app, even less. Repeat tasks are not usable.

I find the overall navigation of the app really irritating and illogical, there is an overuse of gestures that aren’t noted in the initial tutorial. Many of the app behaviours are annoying, dragging a task into a different order first opens the dialogue then you have to swipe back up into the list and back down again without letting go to move it around which is just so cumbersome and unnecessary. You cannot set an order for your tasks, so if you have to set any kind of priority for a set of repeating tasks you have to do that manually every single day. Editing a task with subtasks you have to “complete” the task in order for changes to stick but have to do it multiple times to get it to work, nothing short of infuriating. The watch app is also a big ? What are we even doing here. Just show me my task list instead of breaking it into categories, if I have multiple tasks each from a different list in my days agenda I have to go into 3 separate lists and check them off instead of just giving me my list for the day and ontop of this you cannot view nor complete subtasks on the watch which makes it borderline useless. A useful app but just so irritating in so many places.

Clear interface with great features!

So disappointed you can’t check off or even access sub tasks on watch. This is a basic requirement on todo apps. You can access notes but have to get on your phone to see sub tasks. I rely on this functionality so much I have to go back to my regular app. Please sort this useless watch app.

A calendar and note app needs to as a first step allow quick additions of events. This is unfortunately where the Timepage app fails, with unnecessarily complicated options - event, flow, action, and then an non intuitive horizontal scroll wheel to get the time right, without a view of where the other events on that day are. It is also sad that the actions app is separate and each time you amend or create an action it requires another app to open, with a wholly different visual landscape. I’ve paid £24 for the year and gone back to outlook. Waste of time.

Spiffing stuff!

Waste of time unless you definitely want to pay for it. I downloaded and then couldn't use any feature of the app without subscribing to the '7 day free trial' that you then have to cancel if you don't want it to automatically go into an annual membership. I want to test the features without having to sign-up to memberships etc. If it's good, THEN I'm willing to sign up for paid membership. I suspect I'm not alone in this.

Won’t use, but the app’s attractive and simple. I need tasks (actions) to repeat a fixed number of days after their last completion, and this app cannot handle that. Other apps handle this simply and efficiently. Actions also has an very odd way of handling other repeated tasks that means you may not see actions that you have due tomorrow until midnight on the day they are due. This makes looking ahead to next day’s workload inaccurate. When queried, Customer Support keep explaining the difference between the app’s existing two ways of handling repeated actions, but never acknowledge these missing abilities. It feels as though superficial developments are made by user voting, yet these omissions around repeating actions are fundamental and need to be added as a priority. The irony is that once these are addressed, it’ll outshine other action-handling apps by its attractive interface, but at the moment it’s style over substance.

It’s probably one of the best looking task list apps out there. Now with sub tasks and deadlines which is good to see. But… the smart language recognition isn’t there yet. It gets the date but never picks up the time for the reminder. For the simplicity of the lists, I find the built in reminders app does a better job and it’s free. For more advance task management with deadlines this isn’t really that great compared the many of the alternatives. Things 3 is the best for this. But you also have the likes of Tick Tick or Todoist that do a far superior job to Actions. Sure actions is cheaper than the subscription based apps above, but if you need more than apple reminders, do yourself a favour and get something built for it such as Things with its one of purchase to own. Essentially, for me, Actions seems to land in no man’s land between a basic todo list and trying to be something more and unfortunately only achieving a win in the good looks department…

Slightly worried when the new version was released as it didn’t work as well but seems to all be fixed and this continues to be one of my favourite apps