Conquer your to-do list day in, day out
Price: $3.99/£2.99
Size: 13.6 MB
Version: 1.3
Developer: Zervaas Enterprises
Streaks, a GTD (“getting things done”) iPhone app is a smart piece of software which avid to-do list keepers should consider taking for a spin. You see, the premise behind Streaks is something quite different. Instead of offering users a traditional to-do list setup, the app rewards users for ticking off a refined list of the same items day in, day out. In this way, Streaks hopes to help iPhone owners create lifelong (and potentially life-changing) habits. Plus, as if all this wasn’t enough, smart integration with Apple’s iOS Health app adds useful, additional functionality.
Here’s what you see in Streaks: your six preconfigured goals, ready and waiting to be ticked-off
Streaks costs $3.99 (£2.99), which might seem high for a simple to-do app, but trust us: it’s far more. For starters, the app touts a gorgeous user interface (UI) which displays six user-configured to-do items in circles across the screen. The outlines of these circles automatically fill as users approach certain variable goals, and you can also tick off entire items by touching one of the circles. Behind each individual to-do item is information on your past performance for that particular daily goal, and here the app displays your current “streak” for completed items using a mini-calendar interface. Data concerning your current streak is also displayed, too.
You can easily view data concerning your past performance in relation to building (and maintaining) those all-important streaks!
Streaks includes a bunch of preconfigured to-do items, with examples including daily tasks such as “Read for 10 minutes,” “Take a photo,” and “Practice guitar.” In addition to this, however, the app also includes a number of preconfigured to-do items which integrate with the iOS Health application in order to help users reach exercise-related goals (these are the “variable” to-do items mentioned earlier). Through integration with the iOS Health app, Streaks can automatically monitor your performance towards reaching some of these goals, without any input from the user.
You can also choose which days you’d like your tasks to run on. Only interested in burning 250 active calories on weekdays? No problem!
You might aim to burn a certain number of active calories per day, walk a certain distance, or climb a certain number of stairs. Streaks can usefully log this using the Health app (and, in turn, data collected from the M7 coprocessor, as well as from external devices such as an Apple Watch, for example), and update your performance entirely in the background.
Automatic integration with the Health app will be a real bonus for folks looking to improve exercise habits
Finally, users can alter the appearance of Streaks, they can fine-tune the app’s notification system (which offers reminders for items, as well as to-do badge notifications for Streaks’ app icon), and they can alter settings for individual tasks. Of course, Streaks won’t replace your usual GTD application; the likes of the more comprehensive OmniFocus 2 (from The Omni Group), Things, and even Apple’s own Reminders app are still better options for managing larger to-do lists on iOS. What Streaks does allow, however, is the chance for iPhone owners to develop and maintain good habits. Because I’m sure we could all do with a few more of those.