Airlist - Notes & Tasks

Airlist is the best task manager for the Apple infrastructure I’ve found—and I’ve tried them all. I work as a consultant with global clients and multiple projects always on the go. While I use Apple Reminders and Trello to share tasks with others, I prefer to keep my own task system separate. That’s where Airlist shines. I’ve spent serious time with most major (and many obscure) task management apps. One recurring problem: the “Today” view. Nearly all apps give you a filtered view of tasks due or starting today, which is great—until life gets in the way. Maybe you take a vacation. Maybe you’re heads-down in a big project. Suddenly, tasks pile up. And when you’re finally ready to get back on track, that “Today” list is overwhelming—and your whole system feels broken. Here’s where Airlist is different. You can create custom filtered lists—and stack them by urgency. Tag a few critical tasks, save the filter, and you’ve got a focused “Must-Do Today” list. Or make an even tighter “Do Right Now” list. You can build as many layers of focus as you need—without re-sorting or moving anything around. And unlike other apps, this is fast and intuitive, without being stuck in the default Today view. Other things I love: • Nested tasks go as deep as you want (like OmniFocus), but you can zoom into any task at any level and work from there. Turning a task into a project is as simple as adding subtasks. • Repeating tasks keep their original schedule, even if you delay one instance. (Unlike Apple Reminders.) • Collapsing views and zooming work well together, giving you both detail and overview when you need it. • Browser-like navigation history makes it easy to jump back and forth through your workspace. • Simple UI cues tell you which tasks have subtasks, with tap targets to expand or zoom. A few things I hope get improved: • Occasional crashes (sometimes right after opening). • Custom app icon settings don’t seem to work on iPad. • Search should include notes. • Need a way to quick-add tasks when inside saved filters. • Markdown links show the full URL in notes when they should just show the link text. • Tagging quirks: selecting an already-applied tag adds it again—should remove it. • Split screen on iPad (especially opening two Airlist windows) would be super useful. • Syncing can lag—would love this improved or a manual “Sync Now” button. • The UI is simple and basic (a pro in many ways, but perhaps can use a little sparkle). Even with these rough edges, Airlist is my go-to. It’s powerful, flexible, and fits into my workflow better than anything else I’ve used. It lives in my dock and gets daily use.

Although quite beautiful and powerful what keeps me from using this app is that it requires contact information and user content in its privacy policy and uses a 3rd party sync. To be honest it just doesn’t illicit a cozy feeling when adding content if you don’t feel confident of where your data goes. Although they may be very integritous people it’s hard to rely on blind trust, especially in this day and age. And the mention on the privacy page that in the future they reserve the option to sell to other companies who would then gain your information, and also quite alarming, that your data may be deleted for any reason at any time, for various reasons. In order to be a real contender in my opinion it should use iCloud sync by default and add a few other functions like image and file attachment, and a calendar view like another user suggested. Nonetheless, I will give it a decent rating to support the app and encourage changes in the privacy — because bar the privacy concerns — it is a very unique, powerful and overall all, could be an amazing app to use if it didn’t make you feel so vulnerable to use.

I love where this app is headed. I can’t say I love it as it is today because it needs a few more features/refinements. But I haven’t found any other app that is at it’s core an outliner with task mgmt features (e.g., start dates and due dates with notifications on mac and iOS).