If you’re a fan of Daylite from Marketcircle, you’ll be happy to know that they’re putting the finishing touches on the newest addition to the family of apps: Daylite Touch for iPad. You’ll see it up in the app store sometime in the near future but in the mean time, we’ve got an exclusive sneak peek!
Many of the productivity apps we’ve seen recently are big on eye-candy and short on features. This couldn’t be less true of Daylite Touch. The interface is simple and frill-free and the functionality blows away anything you’ve seen before.
Daylite for Mac
Before diving into Daylite Touch for iPad, you should know that it is an extension of the Mac desktop application. Daylite Touch will not run independently of the Mac client so don’t download the iPad app unless you have Daylite (and Daylite Server) up and running on your computer.
Daylite for Mac is a bit like Things, Address Book, and iCal all rolled into one big application (and then some). It provides you with a single location where you can manage all your contacts, projects, tasks, appointments and more.
Daylite for Mac
Daylite for Mac is targeted at serious business professionals and has a price tag of $189/user. We’ve already taken a look at both the Mac and iPhone versions of Daylite at Mac.AppStorm so be sure to check that article out if you’re new to the application.
Meet Daylite Touch for iPad
If you’re familiar with the iPhone version of Daylite Touch, you’ll be able to instantly pick up and run with the iPad version. The same five category buttons adorn the bottom of the app: Home, Objectives, Contacts, Calendar and Tasks. Below we’ll take a more in-depth look at each of these.
As always, any changes that you make in one version will be updated and synced across all your Daylite implementations across various devices.
Home
The Home screen
The Home screen, shown above, is where you will see a detailed list of any tasks, meetings, etc. that are coming up either today, tomorrow or in the next week.
This is more than a simple overview screen, all of your items are directly editable from here. So if you get a call informing you that today’s meeting is being pushed back by two hours, you can shift the time right from the Home page without digging around the rest of the app to find the meeting.
You can also create a new Appointment, Meeting or Task from the Home screen. At first, the functionality may seem a bit redundant with the other screens but you’ll appreciate this easy-access philosophy when you need to quickly update Daylite and get back to what you were doing.
Adding an appointment, meeting or task from the Home screen
Objectives
The nine basic data types that you’re used to working with inside of Daylite for Mac are organized a bit differently inside of Daylite Touch. For instance, instead of seeing dedicated sections for Projects and Opportunities, these are found under the Objectives tab shown below.
Objectives
On the left of this screen is a sortable list of all your Projects and Opportunities. Selecting an item from the list will bring up its corresponding information. This allows you to view all of your information in a context that directly relates to how you work.
For instance, if you were working on a project for AppStorm, you would be able to tap on the AppStorm project and see any tasks, notes, appointments and linked contacts relevant to that particular project. As you can see, each of the different data types inside of Daylite are tightly integrated so that you can easily keep an eye on everything you need to keep up on from almost anywhere in the app.
You can also edit your project pipelines and delegate any sales leads right from your iPad.
Contacts
Contacts and Organizations are grouped in the same way that we saw Projects and Opportunities. They also follow the same basic idea of having all your information linked in one place.
Tapping on a contact will not only show you all of that person’s information, it will also reveal any tasks, notes and linked items related to that contact. This is awesome for any team leads out there who manage several employees and need a way to keep track of what’s going on with each of them.
Contacts
Calendars
The next tab contains all the meetings, appointments and deadlines for your various projects, viewable in a Day, Week or Month format. The weekly view, shown below, is very similar to the same in iCal on the Mac.
Week Calendar
From here you can tap on various appointments to view and edit them, set up notifications, etc. You can also quickly add events by tapping and dragging with two fingers.
Another handy feature here is the ability to see the calendars of any coworkers running on the same server. This makes it drastically easier to schedule meetings and appointments at a time that’s convenient for everyone involved.
Tasks
The final tab is the Tasks screen. This screen alone is more fully functional than a lot of other task management applications you’ll find in the App Store.
Tasks
You can easily create and edit tasks, give them due dates, delegate them to others, assign locations and categories and a lot more all from this simple screen.
A Worthy Addition to the Daylite Family?
The first time I opened Daylite for Mac, I was quite intimidated. It’s a pretty large application that has more options, features, bells and whistles than I knew what to do with. However, once you get to know the system and learn to understand the various data types, it all starts to make sense and you really see how much of your scattered business information can be migrated, accessed and maintained in this one convenient location.
Daylite Touch in many ways simplifies the Daylite experience and makes it easier to understand for new users, while at the same time leveraging all the power and flexibility that seasoned veterans want.
In all honesty, the iPad version of Daylite Touch really isn’t very different from the iPhone version that’s been on the market for quite a while. However, the larger screen does make for a vastly superior experience that is familiar enough for you to pick it right up and improved enough for you to be thrilled with it. The iPhone version will still be the best for quick fixes when you’re on the run, but that big, beautiful iPad screen is perfect for more involved tasks. As with the previous version of Daylite Touch, this is available for $49 USD per device per year.
Conclusion
To sum up, Daylite Touch harnesses all of the unrivaled professional project management tools of Daylite for the Mac and wraps them in an extremely simple and user-friendly interface that feels right at home on your iPad. If you’re a small business owner or freelancer, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a suite of Mac and iOS-specific apps that allow you to effectively manage as much information as Daylite.
The Daylite team was kind enough to grant me early access to the app and I’ve been using it for over a week without a single issue. We’ll let you know when the app officially releases and maybe even hook you up with a free license!