For me to use a to-do list on a regular basis it has to be easily accessible, simple to use and very reliable. My life is not so complex that I need anything hugely complicated, and my job requires the same thing each day, so I rarely need to plan much in advance. To this end, the standard Calendar app on my iPhoneis ideal as not only is it simple and easy to use, but it syncs with my Mac too.If I were to swap over to a new planner, the app would have to be something very special indeed. Will Planny be that app? Let’s find out.
Released at the beginning of April, Planny promises to be a streamlined organizer that makes the most of the touchscreen interface. As with most organizers, when you start the app you’re presented with a daily view split into hours, with the option of viewing your calendar by month too. Handily you can set the hours displayed on a single page to those of your work, so there’s no unnecessary swiping.
Events appear inside circles – although can be altered to a square, heart or hexagon – and a double tap shows all the relevant information. Each appointment can be assigned a start time and a title, plus there is the option to add notes, set an alert or schedule a repeat.
With your appointment saved, you can assign a priority level. This is then visually indicated on the daily view by both color – green for low importance, blue for medium and red for high priority – and by how high up the screen the appointment is. This makes spotting the most important things in your day very easy, and is the best thing about Planny. Switching to calendar view adds a small number alert on any days with appointments added.
If you need to move an appointment to a later time, you can tap and drag it across the screen to a new time, another excellent time saver. At this point, Planny was proving useful, however, things stared to take a turn for the negative when I delved a little deeper. That appointment I’d just dragged to a new time? Fine if it’s on the same day, but if the appointment has moved to the next day, you have to fiddle about in the menu system. I would have much preferred the ability to drag it over to the next calendar page manually.
Then there is the adding of a new appointment. When you’ve been through everything and clicked ’save’ – which happens far too often – you’re returned to the current day planner; so if you want to check the appointment has been saved you have to either swipe through or visit the calendar overview. Seeing as there is a Now button to return the view to the present day, I would have preferred to see what I’d just added and compare it with other events of that day.
But the biggest problem for Planny is the way it handles more than one appointment at the same time on the same day. Instead of clearly overlapping them, it piles them up with very little indication there’s more than one appointment for that time, especially if they’re all the same level of priority. This could lead to overbooking and missed appointments – defeating the point of an organizer!
These may seem like little niggles, but as I mentioned from the start, I need the least annoying system possible if I’m to use a planner – and although Planny started out well, I soon returned to the standard Calendar. However, Planny gains a point for being a free app, and provided your schedule isn’t very busy or that likely to alter much, it’s a perfectly serviceable organizer.
Positives:
- Fast recognition of important tasks.
- Easy to drag appointments to new times on the same day.
- No setup, minimal menus.
- Difficult to spot multiple appointments for the same time with the same priority.
- Appointments can’t be dragged to another day.
- Not very visually impressive.
