I’m moving between task managers a lot more than usual with my new budgeting measures and after a week with Reminders I’m starting to understand the benefits of using the built in app over paying for a third party.

Sync

Data sync between my iPhone and MacBook has been rock solid. It’s even at the point that if I tick something off my iPhone I see the badge count on my macOS dock disappear without me doing anything. I did have issues in the past and I don’t know what’s changed but sync has been one of it’s strong points

Accessibility

My eyes are a lot older now and I’m bumping up the system font to Max. You’d be amazed how many top rated to do apps don’t adhere to the system setting and therefore aren’t accessible (Things 3 is particularly bad here). No matter what size system font I’m using Reminders adapts to it, therefore making it useable for me.

Privacy first

This has been an Apple mantra for a while but using Reminders lets me worry less about where and how my data is being used.

Tight integration

This is obvious really but if you’re in the Apple ecosystem then it’s tight integration with SIRI, all the devices and HomePod is a big plus.

It’s free

This means a lot to me right now, another monthly payment not to worry about.

It’s actually quite a decent app

I’m impressed with the updates from iOS 13, it’s a very usable app. There are a few more taps you need to go through to set a deadline etc but I like that you can add links and images to a Reminder. Projects and sub-projects are there and you can set items to be due with or without a time. It doesn’t have tags, but then I didn’t use them anyway. It’s well laid out and easy to understand. I’d say it’s also a better app on iOS than macOS.

It has iOS 14 widgets

A pretty basic one but does the job and sits on my home screen. Tells me the number of items and shows me the first 3.

In summary

I’m nit-picky about my apps but being made to accept their flaws based on how much I’m paying has helped me accept Reminders. It’s not perfect for me but no app is, it does the job and has been working for me over the last week. If you’re on iOS, macOS or both then I’d definitely use Reminders as your starting point.