Many of the things we have to do each day have to be done at specific locations. From picking up the dry cleaning to dropping off your library books, you have to remember to do certain tasks while in a specific place. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just be reminded of what you need to do while you’re in an area?
Task Ave is a new location-aware task manager that’s designed to help you remember what you need to do somewhere while you’re actually there. You’ll be able to quickly see how far you are from the things you need to do, and can add tasks to locations with the integrated Google Maps or location search. Keep reading to see how it works and if Task Ave will help you keep from making multiple trips for things you need to do in the same area.
Add Your Tasks by Location
Task Ave is entirely centered around location. When you first open the app, you’ll see a default map from Google Maps that will show your current location (if you enable location services on your device). Press and hold at a location to add a task that you need to do at that spot, or press the plus button to enter a location manually.
Since Task Ave is a location-centric app, it works best on iPhone as it can use the GPS to know when you’re near a location. However, it can still work on iPod Touch, and will even find your location if your WiFi network includes location data.
Tap and hold the map where you'll be doing something, or press the plus button to search for a location
Once you enter a location to search for, you’ll see suggested locations listed underneath. Pick the appropriate one, or change your search query to find the location you’re actually looking for. Task Ave seemed to work best at finding locations in the US, though it did work decent with international destinations. When you select a location, Task Ave will show you how far you are from that place. Now enter the things you need to do at this location, pressing “Done” on the keyboard when you’re finished to add the task. You can continue to add tasks without clicking anything else, which makes it very quick to use.
Search for your location, then add tasks to do there
If you’ve already added tasks to a location, you’ll see the other things you’ve added to the location when you select it. Alternatively, you can see all of your recently used locations by tapping the book icon in the right of the Location box when entering a task. This way, you can add things to do at the places you visit most without searching for them each time.
Select an area you've already added tasks for, and see what you already have to do there
Remember What You Need to do
As you add things you need to do, your task list will be begin to fill up. You’ll be able to see everything that needs to be done from the List button on the bottom. Each location will automatically show how far away you are from that destination, which makes it incredibly easy to plan your tasks based on location.
Alternatively, you can select Map in the menu. This time, though, you’ll be able to see your tasks overlaid on the map. Currently, each location is shown individually, so if you have many items in nearby locations, they’ll look bunched together. It would be nice if the tasks combined to show the total for that region as you zoomed out, but currently it just shows each individual location as its own pin, regardless of your zoom level.
See all your tasks in a list or on the map
From the map, you can tap a pin to see the exact location, then press the arrow to see what you need to do there. Now, as you’re going throughout the day, Task Ave. will automatically prompt you with proximity alerts when you’re near the places you’ve added with tasks. Or, if you’ve turned off location services or can’t currently receive GPS signal, just open the app to see what’s the nearest tasks you need to do.
Whenever you're near something you need to do, Task Ave. will let you know
Depending on where you live and what you’re doing, you may want to be prompted when you’re closer to or farther away from tasks. You can tweak this and more from the Settings menu. One odd thing for American users is that Task Ave uses the metric system by default, but if you’d prefer to see your distances in miles and feet, you can change this from the settings as well. You can also turn off proximity alerts if you’d like to conserve your batter life when you’re not actively using Task Ave.
Tweak how close you need to be for Task Ave to prompt you
Features and Design
While Task Ave isn’t the only todo list app that lets you include location data with tasks, it works better for location-based tasks than other apps since it’s focused solely on this one thing. Often, focused apps that only do one thing well are better, and Task Ave is yet another example of that. Its clean interface and simple features make it simple to create location-centric tasks. Most apps require many steps to add location data to a task, but with Task Ave, todos are built around locations, not the other way around. More and more apps and services are taking advantage of location data in mobile devices, and this is one of the more useful uses of location data we’ve seen.
Conclusion
If you’ve struggled to remember things that you need to do while you’re in the area, or if you simply want to not have to juggle everything you need to do in your brain, Task Ave is a great app to help you. It won’t help you keep a schedule or plan your meetings, but its great for the smaller tasks that are easier to forget. See, your GPS chip can be used for more than just getting from location A to location B! With Task Ave, it can also help you remember what you need to do when you get there.