Everyday, everyone completes numerous tasks and for some, the completion of the tasks can sometimes be forgotten. Luckily for us Apple users, there’s a wealth of apps available in our much-loved App Store to help us get through the daily grind. One interesting dollar-priced app is in this category is Sorted.
Unlike many other to-do apps, Sorted is quite simplistic in UI and functionality. It’s simple: add tasks, get reminded and then do them. It’s not tedious, even if the task might be. So whether you need to remember to pick up milk from the store or be sure to get that birthday present, Sorted might just be your solution.
Getting Started
Sorted is presented in a similar way to the Apple’s Pages app, containing numerous task lists in a horizontal menu. From here, you can create a new list, delete an old one or open a current list. Opening or creating a list will bring up a notepad-like interface, akin to the iPad’s native calendar app. This is your task list, an optimistic look of your fun day ahead or your tedious list of chores.
Adding an item couldn’t be easier, with a simple tap of the plus button adding a new item for you to name. Naming the list is the only thing you need to do, but you can tap on it to change priority, set reminders and add notes.
Sorted has a Pages-style document view
In the settings, you can add different colours to the priority options and at different levels. You can either use this for it’s intended use to signify importance, or just to colour code your tasks.
Setting reminders works in a very similar way to the calendar app and adding notes too. There’s not really that much difference from a calendar, except from the lack of defining a timescale.
Design & UI
Sorted has a simple design. It shows your tasks, and stops there. Everything is presented in an aesthetically pleasing way sans the clutter. The idea of housing it in a notebook-like interface is no novelty here as it looks more natural than many of its competitors.
Sorted’s UI is simple but beautiful
Sorting the Sorted
In addition to the lack of defining a timescale, a major difference is the ability to mark tasks as completed via a one-finger swipe on the task. Doing this hides it from the open list and removes it from vision unless you venture onto the “Completed” tab.
And that brings us nicely to those four tabs at the top. The first tab shows the open list of tasks. The second re-organises the list into order of priority. Of course, colours mean nothing and instead, the importance is set by the user in the settings menu.
The third and forth tabs allow you to view all the completed task and also reorganise them by date.
Tap, Tap and you’re Done!
Sorted uses some multi-touch gestures that you might take some time getting used to. In order to set a task as completed, you simply need to swipe with a single finger on the task. To delete a task, use two fingers in the same gesture.
If you don’t want to use the plus button, you can utilise a double tap to create a new list item. To move them up and down the list, use the grapple to drag them up and down.
Usage
So when would you use this app? Well I’m sure that the type of app would have already indicated its general, everyday usage. However, the unique thing about this particular app is the ability to go back to document view and create multiple lists. This means if you have different tasks for work and home, it’s a simple tap and swipe to change lists.
A great feature of Sorted is the priorities feature. In settings, you can set your own priority scale.
Plus, it’s great to see the priority feature play an important role in this app. Most other to-do apps neglect the diversity of importance of different tasks, so it’s nice to see this play an important role here.
Final Thoughts
I’ve been searching for a good to-do list app for the iPad for a while. This seems like it could be the one. Sorted fuses a simple UI with a simple feature set to it’s advantage as spending ages planning out your tasks instead of doing them isn’t the best way of being productive with a to-do app. If you’re looking for an attractive app that does what it says on the tin, Sorted is probably for you.
My new favorite to-do app at the moment is Sorted but i’m curious to hear what other great apps are out there. Have you tried Sorted or another to-do checklist app? Let us know in the comments!