Task.fm Updates, Adds Twitter and Email Support
Task.fm, the task management/reminder app with natural language input that I wrote about in May, has just come out of beta, promising an improved interface, Twitter and email support, and improvements to the natural language input. As I noted previously, Task.fm’s input was limiting, which would likely frustrate many users.
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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Usually the trick is to stick with a well known grammar, rather than trying to cover all cases.
@joao I agree (I Want Sandy made you use certain syntax and was very well-liked) – the problem with task.fm is that it suggests you can input tasks however you like, and that’s just not the case.
Reqall, I think, has done a pretty good job of using natural language input. I’ve tried it out, and was really impressed with how accurate it was.