App Review: Two-Tap Reminder

Here is one from Social Ebola, the Urban Dictionary guys, that slipped past me in the Marketplace. With our minds becoming more cluttered every day with information, it’s no wonder we all occasionally forget something. Sure, I have a great tasks app that includes a reminder feature, but it takes several taps to load up a new task with a reminder, so for those quickies I usually resort to the old reliable PostIt note. And for those, “a paid app would have to be 100 times better than a free app before I would even consider it” folks, there is the built-in “FREE” Alarm function, but even that takes six taps to set a “nameless” reminder one hour from now. Two-Tap Reminder can do the same thing, with 10 different time intervals, in two taps. Now that’s worth something.

Two-Tap Reminder has a simple interface that gives you options to set three different types of reminders:

-Nameless – labeling your reminder with the generic “Quick Reminder”, so you have to remember what the reminder was for in the first place

-Text – where you can select from a list of pre-defined phrases (requires one extra tap) or type anything you like, up to 30 characters/spaces

-Voice – starts automatically to record a short 9 second (or shorter) message (requires one extra tap if you stop before the timeout)

Your reminders will popup on the Lock Screen (or your active screen if you are using your device) same as the default OS Reminders, not like toast notifications that disappear in a few seconds, allowing you to “snooze” the reminder from 5 minutes to a full day. The Voice reminder pops up with a default, “Recorded Message”, and instructions to open the app to hear the recording. No, you can’t launch the app from the Reminder popup. Text reminders will appear with the phrase you selected/added.

The Settings screen has a single option, a way to “delete” pre-defined phrases, or add your own. Oh, and the app does not add a Background Task, so no potential battery drain issues. Because it is using the built-in Reminder function of Windows Phone there is one limitation. Although you can set a reminder for a specific date/time, the date cannot be more than seven days forward (the Alarm applet only allow you to set alarms a week in advance). Not a biggie for quick reminders. Opening the app after you have gotten a reminder will show all of your Past Due events. A single tap of the Delete button clears all of them out. Woosh! You can swipe over to see any Pending reminders in the queue. Tapping the reminder will give you an option to dismiss it, or tapping the Trash icon to the left will give you an option to dismiss/delete it.

Honestly, I can’t think of how they could have made this app any simpler to use. It currently has 33 reviews with a solid 5 star rating. Probably nitpicking here, but I would like to see some of the When screen short time options replaced with longer periods. Even with my cluttered mind, 1, 5 and 10 minute options are not really needed. But 8 or 12 hours would be helpful. The app has a free trial, that the developer explains is fully functional, but will bother you with a nag messages after using it a bit. Or you can support the developer and buy it for $1.29. You can find the app here. Give it a whirl. What do you have to lose.