Things 3

Things 3 is a personal task management app developed by Cultured Code. Its website positions it as an award-winning personal task manager that helps you plan your day, manage projects and reach your goals one step at a time. The site says it has won the Apple Design Award twice. It is built for the Apple ecosystem, with versions for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Vision Pro.

Key features

• Today and This Evening: The Today list is the hub for your daily actions. Calendar events appear alongside your to-dos, outlining the shape of your day. Tasks that can only be done in the evening can go into a separate This Evening list.
• Upcoming list: Shows scheduled to-dos, repeating to-dos, deadlines and calendar events for the coming days in one place. You can reschedule simply by dragging and dropping.
• Projects, Headings and Areas: Large projects can be split into phases or categories with Headings. A whole group of to-dos can be reordered by dragging its heading, and archived once finished. The sidebar organizes projects by "Areas" and shows project progress with a progress pie.
• Checklists: Multi-step tasks that don't need a separate project can be broken down with a checklist inside a to-do. Pasting a bulleted list from another app converts it into a checklist automatically.
• Magic Plus button: When creating a new to-do, you can drag the plus button to the spot you want to insert a to-do or heading directly, or drop it straight into the Inbox.
• Quick Find and tag search: Results appear as you type, letting you jump to a project, to-do or tag, and you can filter by tag across the whole app. Type Travel on Mac lets you search just by typing, with no keyboard shortcut needed.
• Jump Start and natural-language dates: You can set a to-do for today, this evening, a specific date, a reminder time, or put it in Someday. Natural-language input such as "Tom", "Sat" or "Wed 8pm" is supported.
• Time reminders: Set reminders by tapping, typing or using Siri voice commands. Fastlane in Things Cloud pushes new reminders to your other devices right away.
• Ecosystem integration and extensions: The website mentions support for Dark Mode, widgets, Control Center and Lock Screen buttons, Mail to Things, Siri and Shortcuts, iPad keyboard and trackpad, Markdown notes, URL Scheme and more.

Target users and use cases

Things suits people who want a personal task manager for Apple devices with a clean interface and just enough features. It can be used to organize everyday errands, break down work and personal projects, plan your week, and keep shopping or travel lists. According to the website, users can get all their tasks organized in about an hour.

Core strengths

• Polished design and smooth animations. Opening a to-do feels like opening a blank sheet of paper, and fields such as tags, checklists, start dates and deadlines expand only when you need them.
• Full list-editing capabilities on both Mac and iOS, including multi-select, drag-to-reorder and batch editing.
• The Mac version supports multiple windows, so you can open different projects side by side and drag to-dos between them.
• Syncs across devices through Things Cloud.
• The app's core layer is shared between Mac and iOS, which the website says improves reliability.

How to get it

• The Mac version is available from the Mac App Store, and the website also offers a free trial download.
• The iPhone, iPad and Vision Pro versions are available from the App Store. The Apple Watch app comes with the iPhone version.
• For pricing and system requirements, see the pricing page on the website. Each platform must be purchased separately.

Worth noting

Things supports only Apple platforms, and the website offers no Windows or Android version. It is closed-source commercial software. The website focuses on personal task management and does not mention collaboration features for multiple people.