BusyToDo App Reviews

With the new update Ive lost the syncing with other calendars, as well as the ability to add/manage calendars in the App. Its difficult to evaluate the new user interface when none of my tasks and calendars show up...

BusyToDo has always been the best GTD app for me, very flexible on how things are scheduled with repeats, etc. It plays well with Apple’s Reminders app and with BusyCal. In the past slow sync has been a real problem … no more! It’s fast and reliable, the new interface is lovely, and I couldn’t be more pleased.

This is a great update. The sync is very fast and accurate now, and better than before. I do miss the landscape option though. Please add that again. What’s particularly nice about this app is that it seems to have all the features that are needed, but it excludes several (like tags) that make some of the other apps too clunky and too complex. All in all, well done! It would be nice to see an actual iOS event calendar from you guys too :)

But it doesn’t. It’s just a todo list. BusyCal, by these same folks is a MARVEL. It’s a desktop app ONLY and scoops up all info from reminders and ical events. AND it coordinates with ical and reminders. But for IOS, you need something better than a todo list. You need coordinated reminders and events. Pocket Informant will give you that. It will scoop up everything and give it to you to use and modify on your devices (iOS 7 I think only at this point). So I use BusyCal on my desktop as my default calendar and I use Pocket informant in my pocket.

I have used this app with busy cal for 2-3 years with all apple devices. I have never been able to resolve poor syncing issues. Now there are many more better apps that are free that make this and the cal program irrelevant in comparison. I am migrating to better apps. At the time, I though it would be worth the price, but hey ... My time is worth more

BusyToDo does not sync with iCloud. If you enter your iCloud credentials at first startup it will pull in your reminders accurately. After that if you mark an action complete in BusyToDo it will be marked complete in iCloud. Repeat settings from Reminders are accurately pulled into BusyToDo. Beyond that there is no syncing going on. If you create a new task in BusyToDo it will create a corresponding new Reminder in iCloud with a newly visible Due Date/time of midnight on the date picked for the task. If you mark an item complete in iCloud, it will frequently screw up how that task appears in BusyCal. When I contacted their responsive customer support department about these issues I was told: "Here are the two truisms about BusyCal and ToDos: 1) It considers them all-day events. To Do times are just alarm times to BusyCal 2) BusyCal sets the start and due dates to the same value and does not provide a UI for making them different. However, if another app sets different start and due dates, it can cause the To Dos to show up in BusyCals calendar on the start date rather than the due date. Both of these dont seem to fit into how you want to manage your To Dos? We wonder if you really want to use the iCloud web site to manage to dos (we dont have many customers doing this), or Reminders on both the Mac and your iOS device that you might not want to manage them in BusyCal?" I want true syncing because I work in an environment in which I can’t use my iOS devices, nor a Mac. I do have access to the internet and thus iCloud.com. What BusyToDo claims is not syncing. It’s a design choice of the developer. I have tried many task management apps, but no other refuses to allow a "due time" to be set as it considers them all to be “all day” events instead. I never mentioned a "start time" to BusyMac support in my support requests and don’t know how it applies to the issue at hand. I understand that Apple does not make it easy for developers to sync with Reminders, with Apple’s idiosyncratic “Remind me on a day” field not available to developers. That does not excuse 3rd party developers from claiming iCloud syncing when it doesn’t. Telling a user to just use their apps, BusyCal and BusyToDo to manage tasks is not syncing.

I grabbed this app because I have been using BusyCal on my Macs for years and love it and because not one calendar app works well for me on iOS. I didnt realize that the ONLY thing this app displays are to-dos. Now, I realize that otherwise I would have no way of viewing my BusyCal to-dos on my iOS device, but this seems like a rather anemic implementation from a developer I have come to regard so highly. Practically speaking, for me, this app amounts to no more than a paid alternative to the free Reminders app, since I can use either BusyCal or Reminders on my Macs. BusyToDos, if you add the option to display CALENDAR items in this app, youll earn five stars from me. If you create a BusyCal for iOS, Ill buy it. Please?!

This app is fairly primitive, especially compared to the feature-rich desktop version. The app is a little better than the standard Reminders app, but that doesnt say much since the latter s*cks. One of the best features of the desktop app (for me) is tags, but those dont sync to the mobile app. Not sure if thats the developers fault or a limitation imposed by Apples syncing system, but either way its a disappointment. Lack of tags support means I cant really use the tags feature on the desktop either, since they are useless when Im not at my computer and relying on the app. Also, Im writing this review in mid December 2015 and I see the app has not been updated since Nov. 2014. Most high-quality apps get more frequent updates to fix bugs or add news features. Doesnt seem like the developer is so committed to this app given the time passed since last update.

Have been using the Mac version of this for years and love it. That and the iOS version are So much better than apples reminder app! I wish they would bring their wonderful calendar and contact apps to iOS

I like BusyCal and Busy contacts very much, BusyToDo on my iPhone 6 with up-to-date iOS fails to sync with iCloud. Deleted and downloaded app, no good, please fix ASAP!