Reminder App (Inconsistencies)

I think the point is that you would want a Due Date and an Alert.

As it is, you can only set a Reminder at a particular time. Which is fine if you need to go to the dentist, and be reminded at the time you need to go.

But if you have a project that needs to be done by a certain date, it would be useful to be reminded that it needs to be done, in advance of the time it needs to be done by.

14igor14 wrote:

Hi scribsac,

...is there some other reason you would only want to set a due date without an alert?

Igor, I used to use Entourage 2008's task manager religiously, and it became a habit to use both due dates and reminders for various tasks. Often times I would have a task due on a certain day, and I could sort all my tasks according to due date, but I wanted a reminder on a different day. I am have become dependant on this way of doing things, hence my interest to see if Reminders is capable of doing it so that I can finally replace Entourage.

i just moved from Entourage 2008 to Mail, Calendar & Reminders in OS 10.8. I was finally forced to do so because Entourage doesn't support iCloud/CalDAV and I needed some way to sync my devices and laptops.

Frankly, Apple is not up to par. For years I've been avoiding their suite because it's always been a mess, they keep changing it, and they keep removing features rather than building and improving upon them. It's embarrassing that Entourage 2008 (and its predecessors) outperform 2012 apps from Apple, and that it takes three Apple apps to not even measure up to what Entourage could do in a single, elegant, intergrated interface.

So, here's what you'll be giving up:

* coloured folder systems for organisation in Mail (welcome to Soviet-era monochrome)

* colour-coded categories in Mail (limited deployment)

* Rules that allow category sorting in Mail

* No more Project Center

--> Solution: MailTags, though not perfect, allows some of this functionality by colour-coding Projects

* Reminders do not show up in Calendar (no integrated To-Do list)

* Reminders lack due dates (this appears to be a bug: you can create due dates at iCloud.com)

* Reminders only appear in Notification Centre 24 hours before the event; no ability to set this

--> solution: QuickCal3 or Fantastical offer some workarounds though I have not tried them. For due dates, create a Reminder at iCloud.com, set due date, then use this as a template to copy-paste on 10.8. However still no ability to create due dates on iOS.

* Contacts loses Categories fields & colour-coding, websites, custom fields (Skype handles or whatever)

* Contacts is a stupid looking book thing

--> solution: I haven't looked into it yet, but you can tweak the look of Contacts with MountainTweaks

Ideally, I would've loved to have seen an Entourage update including CalDAV/iCloud support and a new, granular database for sync. Outlook is still no match for Entourage (many productivity features are missing, such as Redirect mail) and Outlook on Mac doesn't support iCloud either.

As for the Apple suite, it makes me wonder how Apple employees set their own tasks and due dates. I have a hunch they must use the above third-party apps because the current system would have you totally lost for serious productivity work.

The whole thing is really driving me nuts, too.

After a very happy end with my old 2,1Ghz Snow Leopard imac, now with Mountain Lion 10.8.2

1. I'm desperately missing isync, which I was able to "solve" by just copying the app from my old iMac

2. Reminders do suck: Now due date, but by "faking" with duplicating/copying some "old" To-Do's from the "good old" Snow Leopard times.

3. isync is sometimes not able to sync NO reminder time OR to sync the correct reminder time AT ALL (at least with my "stone age" Nokia E51). Woke me up a few times in the middle of the night, although I removed all settings for automatic reminder alerts.

4. Reminders cannot be sorted e.g. by "due date".

If I would have know this, I would have continued with my good old Snow Leopard iMac.

Wondering that Apple still doesn't have a solution in place. The To-Do's in the old calendar have been a MUCH BETTER solution - I also send a feedback about this to Apple already.....

Let's pray, that there will be an update, which can solve this

I repoerted this as a bug back in March.

This evening I received a reply to say the report was being closed, as engineers have determined that it acts the way in which it is intended.

So for reasons unknown, it is entirely intentional that Reminders acts inconsistently across devices / platforms, and it is entirely intentional that the only way to add a Due Date is by a completely roundabout fashion, rather than simply make the Due Date field visible when you add a reminder in Reminders.

It beggars belief that Apple cannot see the issue here, or are incapable of simply making the Due Date (which after all does lurk somewhere in Reminders) visible when a reminder is added.

Please, please, please, report the issue that both alarms and due dates at the same time are not possible as a bug here:http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html. The more people who submit it, the more likely apple will listen.

Please, please, please, report the issue again that both alarms and due dates at the same time are not possible as a bug here:http://www.apple.com/feedback/iphone.html. The more people who submit it, the more likely apple will listen.

Reminders automatically sense when I type a date in the task line (such as "call about event on 9/15/13") and assume this is the date of the task (which is meant to NOT be a task for 9/15/13 since the event will have passed). When this happens, it makes my writing down a reminder nearly pointless. Work around?