If you’ve read any of my previous articles here at AppStorm, you might have noticed that I review a lot of task management apps, and this one’s no exception! Later is one of those apps that combine simplicity with function and a beautiful interface. It let’s you manage your tasks with ease, and set reminders quickly. It boasts quite a beautiful interface and includes achievements to make the experience more fun and game-like.
They advertise the app as a task management utility for busy and lazy people, so join me to take a look at this app and see if what they claim holds true.
Getting Started
The first time you launch Later you’ll see a list of tasks. These are designed to teach you how to use the app. Managing your tasks is very easy since all you need is right there. If you wanna change a task’s due time, simply tap it and add 15 minutes, or an hour, or a day. You can also choose to edit the task right there. Marking tasks as done is also very cool. In a very iOS-like way, just swipe a task to mark it as done. You can also do this by dragging the tag on the right and tapping Done, or delete the task if you no longer need it.
If you need to undo a task, just tap on the top left to view a list of all your done tasks. There, drag the tag and choose Redo.
The in-app tutorial and task options
To add a task, just tap the Add Task button at the bottom. You’ll need to write a description of what you need to be reminded of, and select when you want to do it. This part is the coolest of the app in my opinion, since selecting a time is very easy. By default, the due time is an hour from the time you’re adding the task. You can change it slightly by tapping the plus and minus buttons on the right, or, if you need to define a more specific time, you can select different presets, like tomorrow noon or tomorrow night. Change the day by tapping on one at the bottom, or, if you can’t set the time for any reason and need to select it yourself, drag up and choose a specific date and time.
Adding a task
Customizing
When adding a task, those time presets you saw can be customized — Morning, Noon and Night are hours you can preset on the settings pane. Tap on the cog at the top and you’ll be able to select your own times; Maybe Night is a little later than 18:00 for you. You can also change the sound of the reminders, although there aren’t a lot of sounds to choose from and they’re all a little annoying if you ask me (although that might be a good thing). Another thing that’s customizable is the time stepping. When tapping the plus and minus buttons when adding a task, you add and remove 15 minutes respectively. You can change that to be 5, 15 or 30 minutes.
Customizing the app
Bonus: Achievements!
This is not the first task management app that features achievements, but it’s a nice feature. It makes getting things done kind of a game. The first achievement is easy, but you’ll need to give the app some use to discover the rest! You can find them by tapping on the top right of the app.
Later's achivements. Gotta unlock them all!
Final Thoughts
Later is Crush Nuts’ first app and I think it’s on the right path. The app is simple, intuitive and very easy to use. It has the all the features one needs and sometimes having too many options works against the usability of the app. Toodledo comes to mind here: it’s a great app, but there are so many options it’s easy to get confused.
What I like most is the way you can select due dates. It’s very simple, quick and is easier than selecting the specific date and time yourself. I think the claim that it’s built for busy and lazy people is true. It’s very quick to add a task and a reminder, and it beats Reminders at that. The one thing that’s missing from Later is synchronization of some sort, since this is a multi-device world.
One thing I don’t like is how settings work. Changing a preset shows both date and time, but you can’t change the date (which wouldn’t make sense anyway). I think this part of the app could use some improvement, since you should only see the time slider, not the date.
Apart from that, it’s a great app. Simple and easy to use, and with achievements, which adds that game feeling to getting stuff done.