How often do you let your toast burn, brew your tea for 20 minutes, or forget to turn off the sprinkler when watering your grass? Or do you have a harder time remembering that you need to call your Mom on your lunch break, submit your proposals before the deadline, and more? Most of us need something that will stay on our back and not let us forget the littlest things we need to do, and relying on your spouse, parent or boss to remind you isn’t a great idea.
Your iPhone or iPod Touch is the ideal reminder device. It’s really the best personal digital assistant that had ever been made, even if we don’t usually call iOS devices PDAs. The only problem is, the default Clock app doesn’t make it easy to set quick alarms for specific tasks, and you can only have one timer going at once. That’s not nearly enough for the variety of reminders and timers you’ll actually need to really remember everything.
Due is an elegant new app that’s designed to solve this problem. You can quickly add reminders for everything you need to do, whether it’s today or next week. You can also create reusable timers that you can activate with one flick, so you’ll never forget your brownies in the oven again. Keep reading to check out more of Due’s features to see if this is the app you need to turn your iOS device into a better PDA!
Getting Started
Due starts out with a blank page, but before long, you’ll have it humming with reminders and timers for all of your tasks. Tap the plus button to add a reminder, complete with a task name and the date and time you wish to be reminded about the task.
Get started adding reminders quickly
Due lets you grab pre-selected times that it generates based on the current time, or you can tap on the Due field to autoselect 10 minutes for your timer. Swipe to the left to uncover settings for auto snooze, as well as repeat settings that let you make your task auto-repeat every day, week, or month.
Enter your time manually or choose from the prelisted smart times
You’ll now be able to see all of your reminders from the Reminders tab. Tap a reminder to uncover extra options, including snooze, repeat and alarm. Or, if you want to put a reminder off, tap the last three buttons to add 10 minutes, 1 hour, or 1 day to the task. If you need to edit it tasks further, just tap Edit and then select the task to tweak it. If you complete a task before the timer is up, you can tap the check box to mark it as completed.
Bump a reminder up 10 minutes, an hour, or a day with a tap, or tweak it further from the Edit option
Timers Made Simple
The timers are even easier to use. Due comes with a few premade timers that you can use or delete if you don’t want, or just tap the plus button to add new ones. Enter a name for the timer, select the time length for the task, then choose whether or not to use alarm mode. If you use alarm mode, you’ll keep getting reminded if you don’t turn off the timer; in standard mode, you’ll just get reminded and the timer will automatically turn off.
New timers will automatically be turned on when you add them, but you can quickly turn any timer on or off anytime by tapping the light switch on the right of the task. You’ll see a countdown in blue on active timers, while inactive timers will show their time and description, ready for you to use when you need them.
Timers are incredibly handy, and you can reactivate them anytime with a simple flick.
Stay Reminded
Whether you’ve set reminders or timers, you’ll always be notified when they’re due, no matter what you’re doing. Due uses native notifications, so you won’t have to be online or have your tasks synced to a server to get notifications. If your device is locked when a task is due, you’ll be able to go directly to the task when you unlock it. Alternately, tap close or hit your power button to snooze the task, and if you set alarm mode on your task you’ll get a new notification soon.
No matter what you're doing, you'll always see what's Due!
Back in Due, you can see any snoozed reminders or overdue timers easily as they’re highlighted or in bright red, respectively. This is especially handy with the timers, so you can see just how overbaked your pizza is this time.
Quickly see overdue timers and snozzed reminders
Tweaking Settings and Syncing
Want to see what you’ve done? The Logbook keeps track of all the single-use reminders you’ve completed, including the last time they were done. You can reuse the reminder by pressing the recycle button. This will open a menu where you can select when you need to get reminded of that task again.
Due’s Settings are hiding in the Logbook, too. Tap the Settings button in the top right corner of the Due Logbook to tweak your alerts, sounds, backup settings, and more.
View finished reminders and tweak your settings from the Logbook
You can tweak all of the sounds in Due from the Settings. There’s a wide variety of excellent sound effects to notify you, so you can choose the ones that you think will be the most likely to make you notice. Each sound effect shows its time length, too, which is a nice touch that makes it easy to know which sound effects will be best for your needs.
If you use Due on multiple iOS devices, or perhaps want to share your Due tasks and timers with someone else, you can sync everything via Dropbox. Just link your account, then choose your sync settings. Now, whenever you’re online, your tasks and timers will be backed up and synced.
Sync your reminders and timers via Dropbox, choose your favorite sounds, and more
Design and Usability
Due definitely makes it easier to keep up with the things you need to do. I especially liked the timers, which made it super easy to create timers for things I do often and then turn them on with literally 2 taps. The developer obviously focused on making Due streamlined and quick to use, and it really excels there. If you ever find yourself lost, chances are Due will help you find your way. Tap any i button you see to get a popup with info about that feature, and when you add time to or change a task, you’ll see a text notification at the bottom to give you feedback about what you’ve done.
Due is easy to use with reminders and notifications throughout the app
Conclusion
Apple’s built-in iOS apps are some of the best designed apps on iPhone, but Due is yet another example of how focus on one feature done right can result in a much more streamlined and useful app. The Clock app tries to do too many things, and manages to make it more difficult to make alarms and timers that are truly useful. If you’d like to make it easier to keep up with all the little times you have to remember throughout the day, Due is a great way to do it. From reminders to timers, this is one app that makes it easier to keep up with what’s due, when.