During MacWorld, we were interviewed by Chuck Joiner at MacVoices TV. View the entire interview here, to learn more about our philosophies on integrated organizers, and also on connecting the forest with the trees – as well as the acorns :)
Left Coast Logic, producer of the popular “Smart” series of productivity tools and organizers for iOS devices, will unveil three new apps and a cloud service at their MacWorld debut on January 26: ScrapBook for creativity, SmartDay for organizing across multiple devices and the web, and SmartPlans for project planning integrated with the iOS calendars.
The centerpiece is SmartDay, an organizer that integrates tasks, events, notes, and projects into one app. It features the company’s SmartTime™ logic that schedules tasks directly into the free time between calendar appointments. SmartDay is designed to help both students and professionals balance their schedules with the things they need to accomplish.
SmartDay Mac is the company’s first OSX app and will include a feature-set similar to its top-selling iPad organizer, SmartPad. The company will also unveil a web version, mySmartDay.com, that synchronizes with both. This will allow access anywhere, at any time. An iPhone version is under development and will be released this Spring. The company is also planning “companion” versions for other mobile devices.
“We see productivity as more than just ‘getting things done,” says Michael Jardine, Managing Partner of Left Coast Logic. “Our vision is to take the forest, the trees, and even the acorns – and put them within easy reach of anyone.”
If SmartDay is the trees, then SmartPlans is the forest. SmartPlans uses its own version of “Smart” logic at a higher level to manage multiple projects within the context of one’s weekly work balance. “SmartPlans allows you to see not just one forest, but several – and to balance them,” says Jardine. Version 2 was highlighted in “What’s Hot” in the iTunes Store last year. The all-new Version 3 adds a host of business-oriented features such as milestones and dependencies, but the most significant new feature may be the way it integrates projects into the native iPhone and iPad calendars. “Sync those calendars to SmartDay or SmartPad, and there you have it – the forest AND the trees.”
At the ‘acorn’ end of the continuum is the company’s newest creation, ScrapBook – a simple way to create, share and present ideas and memories. Flexible and easy to use, anyone can create multi-page flip books made up of photos, maps, notes and voice comments. Use it to create a scrapbook of a trip, to present an idea, or to organize thoughts and pictures journal-style. ScrapBook will be available on both iPhone and iPad.
All products will be available for demonstration at the company’s booth #3 in the OS X Zone of MacWorld at the Moscone Center in San Francisco January 26-28. They will be launched on the iTunes and Mac app stores shortly after.
Video Clip: http://youtu.be/4h2mupejeik
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We are pleased to announce that new maintenance updates of SmartPad and SmartTime have been accepted by the iTunes App Store. These both address synchronization issues brought up by the new iOS5 calendars and by memory allocations at app start-up. Try these out and let us know how they work for you. You can make comments and ask questions directly to our Forum Page.
Join Us At MacWorld Jan 26-28
We will have a kiosk at MacWorld in San Francisco in a few weeks time and will unveil new apps as well as a new web service. Already, three of our apps have been accepted into MacWorld’s “First Looks” campaign. They are ScrapBook, SmartDay Mac, and SmartPlans3. Come check them out!
There was an interesting article in today’s WSJ called “Conquering Your To-Do List“. Alas, they just talked about how to handle simple tasks. If only life was that simple!
Here’s how we see productivity:
Just as the building blocks of nature are electrons and protons (okay, and neutrons), the building blocks of every day in everyone’s life are Events and Tasks (‘neutrons’ can equate to ‘idle time’ or ‘sleep’).
Events have a fixed date, time and location. For example, “Meet Joe for lunch at 9:00 at Joe’s place.”
Tasks have a variable time. They can be done whenever. Usually tasks are done in the free time that you have between Events. Sometimes, there are qualifications. Here are a few:
- “Start” Task
Example: Mow the lawn any time after this Saturday. - “Due” Task
Example: Mow the lawn no later than next Sunday evening. - “Window” Task
Example: Mow the lawn at some point between Saturday morning and Sunday evening.
Tasks also come from a variety of sources. Here are a few sources, also referred to in the above chart:
- Personal Tasks
These are tasks in your list. Example: Fix the lawn-mower. - Project Tasks
These are tasks that follow a fixed order and are usually a part of a sequential Project.
Example: Finish writing Chapter Two and Begin Writing Chapter Three. - Delegated Tasks
These are tasks that someone else has assigned to you. They may come from a shared Project, or they may come from a friend, parent, teacher or co-worker. Example: Finish the homework assignment before you go to the Football game.
Strangely, most calendars have Events but they do not integrate Tasks. The task list is usually relegated to a lonely and rather useless side column next to the calendar, almost as an after-thought. Or, some software designers make a fancy task list with lots of filters and tags for slicing and dicing, but you are still left high and dry because they are not integrated with your calendar events.
SmartTime, SmartCal, and SmartPad feature integrated calendars that combine tasks and events. We’ve solved the problem of integrating Personal Tasks and basic Project Tasks into your Calendar. Together more than one million people have downloaded these three apps.
Another difficult problem is how to integrate Project planning, into your To-Do List or Integrated Calendar. Project planning is usually treated as “something different.” To our knowledge, nobody has really tried to integrate the tasks from a Projectplanner, into an individual’s task list. And certainly not into an integrated calendar. Until now.
Our project planner, SmartPlans, synchronizes tasks from each Project Plan with Toodledo. From there, you can sync to SmartCal and SmartPad. Sweet.
And we’re about to take it one step further: SmartPlans 3.0, due out next month, will feature Milestones. Milestones are groups of tasks within a Project that have a specific deadline. We have a novel solution that will actually integrate Milestones into your Calendar as Repeating Events. Now you can see exactly how everything fits.
As for Delegated Tasks, we’re working on that too. We’re going to take SmartPlans 3.1 to the next level and offer an enterprise version that allows people to delegate individual tasks to members of their team. Each individual member can then integrate those tasks into their personal integrated calendar – SmartCal or SmartPad.
Speaking of integrating, we will be launching our Mac and Web apps at MacWorld at the Moscone Center in San Francisco January 26-28. Come to booth 228 and see.
Soon, you’ll be able to integrate Tasks and Events anywhere. Web, Mac, iPad, iPhone. And yes, also in 2012, Android and other devices.
It’s all part of our Great Plan. A plan that started with the question “Gee, I wonder why tasks and events are separated?”
There are a few nuances in synchronizing our apps with the new iPhone and iPad calendars in iOS5. We hope these get cleared up in subsequent updates to iOS5 (there’s nothing we can do from our end) but here are the basics:
Before you sync
Make sure that you have a group of calendars in your iPhone or iPad called either “From My Mac” or “From My iPhone (or iPad)”. This is because – for some reason – iOS5 requires us to first establish a sync connection with calendars that are local to your device. You can sync to external calendars, but you must FIRST have the local calendars. I know it sounds strange, but that’s how it works. Once you have set up calendars “From My Mac” or “From My iPhone” or “From My iPad” then you can sync SmartTime, SmartCal, and SmartPad to ANY of the calendars that are on your device, including iCloud and Exchange.
It’s This Simple:
- Disable external calendars
- Establish “From My Mac” or “From My iPhone” calendar group
- Enable any external calendars
Details:
1) First, make sure that any external calendars (such as iCloud, Exchange, GMail, Yahoo) are disabled. To disable, go to your device Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars -> select the Account, then switch “Calendars” to “Off”. There is no need to Delete the Account. You will get a message that says “Are you sure you want to continue? All (Gmail) calendars will be removed from your iPhone.” Select “Delete from My iPhone.” Don’t worry, you can bring these back later simply by switching the Calendar back to “On”.
2a) To set up calendars “From My Mac“, simply connect your device to iTunes then sync your calendars. This will sync with your iCal calendars. After doing so, go back to your device calendar to check; you should see a section called “From My Mac” with all of the calendars that you sync’d from iCal.
Or…
2b) To set up calendars “From My iPhone” (or iPad), just go to your iPhone or iPad Calendar. Make sure that you do not have any other calendars set up. Then in your iPhone or iPad calendar, select “Calendars” then “Edit” then “Add Calendar…”. Create any new calendar, then in that calendar create one appointment. This may sound strange, but that “flips a switch” somewhere in the iOS5 calendars that says you have data in a calendar that you created on your iPhone.
3) Now, enable any external calendars that you with to sync with, such as iCloud, Exchange, Gmail, etc. You should now be able to sync to those calendars TO (and from) SmartTime, SmartCal, and SmartPad.
More Calendar Quirks
When making these changes to your iOS calendar, it helps to wait a few minutes in-between actions. Sometimes the changes take a while to “compute.” For example, when you enable a set of external calendars such as Exchange, in Step 3 above, you should get a message that gives you an option to “Keep” or “Delete” local data on iOS. Choose “Keep.” However, sometimes you will not get this message.
Syncing to External Calendars
Once you’ve gone through the steps above, any calendar that you create in SmartTime, SmartCal or SmartPad will create a calendar with the same name in your iPhone or iPad calendar. However, that will NOT create a corresponding calendar in any external calendars such as iCloud, Google or Exchange. If you use external calendars such as these, you must first create that calendar in the external calendar, then sync it to your iPhone or iPad calendar. SmartTime, SmartCal and SmartPad will then automatically import that data and any subsequent changes are sync’d both ways – that means you can create a new event in SmartCal and it will sync thru to Google calendar via your iPhone calendar. But only after you first create that calendar in Google calendar and make sure it is sync’d to your iPhone calendar.
A Note about Tasks
Note that SmartCal and SmartPad sync Tasks with Toodledo, but that all Tasks and Events share the same Project Category. So if you create a new calendar in Google called “My Google Stuff”, and if you sync that to your iPhone calendar, it will create a new calendar in SmartCal called “My Google Stuff.” The next time you sync SmartCal with Toodledo, a new Folder will be created called “My Google Stuff.” It will likely be empty, unless you created any tasks in SmartCal. You can just ignore that folder or, better, use it to also create tasks that sync with SmartCal.
SmartPad and SmartCal sync Events directly with the iPhone/iPad Calendar, and Tasks with Toodledo. We chose those two “ports of entry” because they offer the widest selection of “ongoing connections” to other devices and platforms, such as Outlook. To sync both tasks and events to Outlook, you will have to take those two separate routes: Events via your iPhone (or iPad) Calendar, and Tasks via Toodledo. Here is some more information for you:
Syncing Calendar Events with Outlook
- Via Sync ServicesRead this article from Microsoft Support: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2452489
- Via ExchangeOn your iPhone or iPad, go to Settings -> Mail, Contact Calendars -> Accounts -> Add Account then select Microsoft Exchange. From there you can input your Exchange user settings.
Syncing Tasks with Outlook
Our apps sync tasks with Toodledo. Toodledo offers a number of third-party apps that sync tasks with Outlook. Here are a few:
http://www.toodledo.com/tools/directory_item.php?appid=PersonalOrganizerSystem and
http://www.toodledo.com/tools/directory_item.php?appid=gsyncitv3
Here is a free plug-in that we’ve heard good things about:
http://www.chromadrake.com/ChromaticDragon/software/ToodledoSyncInfo.aspx
Coming Soon – SmartDay
Our own solution is SmartDay for Mac and for Web. Soon you’ll be able to use our productivity apps on your Mac, and online (from any computer) – featuring our integrated logic. And our apps will sync tasks, events, and all other settings directly with SmartDay web.
SmartTime 5 is back
The first ever integrated organizer just got better – SmartTime 5 is the first organizer that integrates both Events and Tasks directly into the iPhone calendar! Now, the Smartness of SmartTime™ logic extends to your iPhone calendar – and from there, to any other calendars that you may sync to – including iCal, Outlook, and Google.
How does it do that?
Easy. We’ve never believed in the separation of Events and Tasks. That’s why we created SmartTime to integrate them. SmartTime™ logic looks at the free time between your appointments, and drops your tasks right in. Apparently this revolutionary idea has resonated with a few other people - in the past three years, SmartTime has enjoyed nearly one million downloads. So we thought, “Why not do that with the iPhone calendar?” Now when you synchronize SmartTime 5 with the iPhone calendar, tasks are converted into events but with the “☐” check box figure. This shows you that SmartTime’s logic has placed a Task into the free time between your appointments. Each time you make any change in SmartTime, it’s updated in your iPhone calendar. You can also add and edit new calendar entries from your iPhone calendar (or external calendar that it connects to). The next time you sync with SmartTime, the Tasks are instantly updated to reflect the new calendar events that you created. Kinda like the tail wagging the dog.
Now that’s smart.
SmartTime 5.
The first integrated organizer for iPhone.
SmartPlans is currently the most popular project planner on the App Store (today it is ranked #21). We have been working on a new version that will be ready at the end of the year and it is going to be even better. And for all of you who already own SmartPlans, the upgrade will be free! Here’s a peek at some of the new features:
- Milestones with critical path
- Milestones sync with your Calendar (they will appear in your iPhone & iPad calendars as “All Day Events”)
- Milestones have pop-up Alerts based upon deadlines
- Dependencies – any project can become a parallel, sub-project by linking it to a Milestone inside another project
- Gantt View has two levels: Project level and Milestone level
- Cascading detail in Gantt view allows you to see and edit specific milestones, tasks, and sub-project directly from the Gantt view
Coming in 2012, we will integrate projects directly into our productivity apps.
Get (or Give) Half-off on the all-new SmartCal iOS5
Other apps too!
Give them as Gifts!
Tell your friends!
Thanksgiving Weekend only.
SmartCal for iOS5 has just been released with many new features including Transparent Calendars (great for shared calendars), e-mail backup, new calendar colors, and iOS5 calendar integration. Check out the new stuff here.
Buy any of these Smart Apps for half price and save up to $8.99! This is the perfect opportunity to purchase gifts at this one-time price and give our apps to your friends, colleagues or family! Just click the triangle next to the price on the App Store and choose “Gift This App”. Offer good this Thursday through Sunday, November 24-27.
Tell your friends! (Or hint that you’ve found the perfect gift for them to give you.) Just click on the Facebook Share or Tweet icons at the bottom of this post.
SmartCal is an intelligent calendar and planner for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Plan and organize in three handy views: Calendar View integrates tasks directly into the free space between your appointemnts and has a handy pull-down “mini month” for easy planning; Task View shows which tasks fit into each day for the entire week, with easy filters and drag/drop prioritizing; Projects View shows your tasks by project category. Synchronize appointments directly with your iPhone calendar, and tasks with Toodledo.
SmartPad is SmartCal’s “big brother” for iPad. MacWorld said it best: “Smart Pad stands out among calendar apps because its power lies in its flexibility and in the level of detail…allowing users to easily switch between day and month views, or side-by-side views of a day’s schedule along with a list of tasks, notes, projects, or a history of completed tasks.”
SmartNotes helps organize your ideas and to-do’s intuitively using drag-and-drop ‘stickies’. You can drag any note on top of another to create a new folder, and you can attach photos or voice recordings to any note. SmartNotes runs on both iPhone and iPad, and now on any computer via mySmartDay.com. Share data freely between devices and your desktop. SmartNotes was rated ‘New and Noteworthy’ by Apple and hit #1 in its category.
SmartPlans is the top-selling project planner on the app store. Plan and manage your projects, calls and tasks – all from one app. Create projects and fill them with tasks and sub-tasks. Manage your plans in the intuitive GANTT chart. Record the time of any task, call or contact. And now, you can synchronize project tasks with Toodledo – and integrate those tasks into SmartCal and SmartPad. SmartPlans runs HD on both iPhone and iPad. SmartPlans
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SmartCal for iOS5 is now available with several great new features, including…
- Transparent calendars – now you can designate any calendar as “transparent.” This is useful for if you import shared calendars from family or colleagues, but don’t want those items to get in the way of SmartCals’s logic which places Tasks into the free time in your Calendar.
- Backup by email – this backs up not only your data but also your settings and calendar colors.
- New colors – now you can select from 32 different calendar and category colors.
- Manual Sync Option – if you are using automatic sync, SmartCal will now remind you each time you start up the app. This solves some sync problems for people with large databases.
- Create new calendars in your iPhone calendar – now when you create a new calendar category in SmartCal, it will automatically create a calendar with the same name in your iPhone calendar (To take advantage of this, you must have your iPhone calendar configured to view “Calendars from my Mac” and not any external calendars such as Google or Exchange.)
