Task.fm

The input on the new version is better; the particular input that I complained about in my previous post (“meeting with Dave in 30 minutes”) now works perfectly. However, there are still problems with it. For example, if you enter “dentist today at 4:30,” you’ll get a reminder of “dentist today” set for 4:30 a.m. on the current day. Try “dentist at 4:30 this afternoon” instead, and the result is even worse: You’ll get a task of “dentist this after” set for noon. As I noted in my previous post, natural language input is very hard to get right, and unfortunately Task.fm hasn’t cracked it yet.

The new email and Twitter support means that you can enter tasks by sending Task.fm an email or a tweet, so if you really want to interact with your reminder app through email or Twitter and you’re willing to put up with the shortcomings of the natural language input and learn its syntax, it might be an option for you. But given the problems with task entry, I still can’t recommend this app for widespread use.

Have you tried Task.fm’s natural language input? How could it be improved?

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The web site is nicely designed and registering for it is straightforward. While registering, you set up defaults for your alerts — how you’d like to be reminded (email, SMS or both) and how far in advance of each task you’d like to be reminded.

You have two choices for entering tasks: natural language input and “Advanced” (manual input). The default is natural language input, which is fast and works pretty well if you stick to simple sentences and follow the format provided in the example. Unfortunately, once you stray a little from the example format, it falls down, and you have to go in and edit the task. For example, if you try to enter “meeting with Dave in 30 minutes”, it sets a task of “meeting with Dave in 0 minutes” for 3 a.m. on the current day. Natural language processing like this is a really tricky thing to get right, and Task.fm is still only in beta, but having to switch to manual input to re-enter tasks would get annoying fast. It’s also somewhat limiting to have to enter your reminders through the web app. With natural language input, I would like to be able to set reminders on the go through email, SMS or even voice input.

Once your reminders are set, it’s easy to manage and edit them. SMS and email alerts are timely and work just as you would expect, but I couldn’t find a way to set up phone call alerts.

Email reminders are free, but SMS and phone alerts cost 1 credit each. The cost of a credit varies depending on how many you buy, starting at 20 credits for $2. New accounts come with 10 credits, so you can try the SMS reminders for free.

Task.fm shows some promise with its simple, easy-to-use interface, but until the natural language input can deal with everything its users are likely to throw at it, I don’t believe it’s ready for widespread use (I Want Sandy — unfortunately now shuttered — was a great example of simple sematic input done right). I’ll be sticking with Google Calendar for my alerts.

What reminders app do you use?

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