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Having a daily/weekly/monthly planner is essential to me. I currently lug around a paper version, because it's easy to make entries and view. I recently saw Planner for iPad app, and was intrigued because it syncs with the native calendar app, which also syncs with mobile me and my iPhone. That would be a huge bonus.
Has anyone used it? Are there any other apps you'd suggest for this purpose?
I looked at several apps for this and, in the end, chose Pocket Informant HD.
I read that Pocket Informant was buggy but, in my (admittedly) limited experience, I’ve found no problems at all. It has a very nice user interface that's almost infinitely configurable - a complaint that many Forum members make about the iPad’s native ‘Calendar’ app. So you can choose how tasks, events, projects, appointments are colour coded and there is a wide choice of notifications and alarms - so, for example, you can have different alarm sounds for different categories of notifications.
Pocket Informant ‘sits on top’ of the iPad's native ‘Calendar’ app and (optionally) imports all entries that it finds there. They can be colour coded so they can be distinguished from entries made in Pocket Informant itself.
This is important because many other iPad apps use the native ‘Calendar’ app as the default place to put events, invitations etc. So, for example, if you are invited to a meeting by email and you receive that invitation in the iPad’s native ‘Mail’ app, that app can automatically (and quite cleverly) insert that invitation into the default calendar app. Without that integration between the native app and Pocket Informant, you'd have to enter those invitations all over again.
Pocket Informant has lots of ‘hidden’ features too. One of the reviewers remarked that part of the ‘fun’ of using Pocket Informant was discovering them!! The display is infinitely configurable - day, week, month, year at a time. Tasks, events, overdue tasks, projects, projects in progress etc etc all can be optionally displayed on the main calendar. Projects and tasks can have infinitely nested sub-tasks and projects - these can cleverly be integrated with GPS - so, say you needed to purchase some goods from the hardware store. Put that in a To-Do list and link it to the location of the hardware store using the iPad’s native ‘Maps’ app. Next time you’re driving past the hardware store, up pops the notification (‘Remember to purchase some 2”x4” timber’).
Repeating events are very flexible too, with the ‘custom’ mode being infinitely (I keep using that word!) configurable. So, meetings that occur on the last Thursday and first Monday of every other month - no problem.
It can sync with external calendars - Google for example - and back-up is cool, it creates a backup file that you can email to yourself for safe keeping. If you lose your iPad or all your data is corrupted, that backup can be imported back into Pocket Informant with a single click.
You can create multiple diaries within Pocket Informant - say ‘Work’, ‘Family’, ‘Golf Club’ etc and have their entries optionally displayed on the main screen or restricted to the display of the individual diary. So it’s easy to check if there’s a clash between the golf tournament and your wife's birthday - and hide it if there is......
If you surf to the developer’s web-site, you can download for free a very comprehensive User Manual that will show you in detail what Pocket Informant can do.
The developers are constantly updating the program - always a good sign in my view.
As I said at the beginning, perhaps I'm not a particularly demanding user, but I’ve had no stability problems at all. I should add the usual disclaimer that I have no contact or other relationship with the developers of Pocket Informant other than being a very satisfied customer.
Tim
Scotland
Sounds great, providing its not to complicated. Will it sync with my iPhone through the native calendar app?
Pocket Informant was my favorite application when I had a PDA before the smart phone and the iphone, several years ago. I am going to go find it in the App Store. I may be a newbie on the Ipad but this was the best application and the developer, Alec, and his forum was always helpful.
I'll go poke around his forum and see if it has the capabilities I want.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dee Ashley
I use Omnifocus on my iPad and iPhone. I use the GTD system and after trying out a bunch of other products found that Omnifocus worked for me.
I use 'planner for ipad' app on a daily bases. It's my diary.
I chose it purely because it's UI is the closest match to a traditional Filofax as you get, ie, 7 days (with space for daily notes) on the single page. No other iPad diary style app does this in Filofax stylee
Very useful for native calendar syncing. It's UI if fairly basic and uninspiring, as is it's operation and use, it has very limited 'extras' to.
I personally like it. I'd like to see a more graphically pleasing UI like ToDo, but other than that it does what it says on the tin