Modern life is filled with an endless array of tasks we need to complete and whether those tasks are on your to-do list or honey-do list, Android app Any.DO can help. Like other task management apps, Any.DO allows you to keep complex lists of activities you need to complete, but it also one-ups the traditional to-do list by allowing you to assign tasks to friends or coworkers or turn missed calls into new assignments.
Any.DO originally launched last year, but at Mobile World Congress this week, its developers released a new Ice Cream Sandwich version that supports Android's beam feature for task sharing and allows you to set appointments directly from the task list. In a brief demo at the company's booth, a rep showed us the app''s key features, including its ability to reorder tasks on your list by dragging them, remove tasks by swiping them away, or call contacts using Android's dialer, directly from the task list.
Though it is not a totally new feature, we were particularly impressed with Any.DO's missed call handling. Any time you fail to answer a call, Any.DO puts an alert on the screen that allows you to you to add following up with that person as task on your to-do list. You can even assign the follow-up to a coworker or friend. So, if your mother-in-law calls and you don't answer, you can always assign the follow-up task to your wife.
The Any.DO rep showed us how the task list can now add appointments directly to the Android calendar, a feature that's new for the Ice Cream Sandwich. He showed that, if your task is designated as a meeting, a "set this" button appears next to that item in the to-do list. When you tap the button, Any.DO opens a calendar entry form where you can set the time and place for the meeting.
If your phone has NFC and Ice Cream Sandwich, Any.DO now lets you share tasks by tapping one phone to another. Our rep showed he could set one phone to share the task via beam and the other to receive. After tapping the two handsets together, the recipient phone was prompted to accept the task and add it to its Any.DO list. If rubbing phones together seems impractical or you don't have NFC, you can share tasks via the Internet instead, a feature that already existed in previous versions of Any.DO.
Seeing the demo, we couldn't help but think of the business possibilities, particularly for journalists like ourselves. We imagined having a story planning meeting and then issuing assignments to writers by tapping phones with them.
Any.DO is available right now from the Android Market for free. An iOS version is coming soon.
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