Google Tasks on iOS

That's the great thing about the iPhone - there is plenty of apps to chose from. If you find an app that suits you better and for a lower price you should certainly buy that. Make sure to tell us what you ended up with - I am genuinely curious.

Which features do you think are missing from GeeTasks? I know there are quite a few that need to be added (and I'm working to put them in), but I would like to know your opinion to help me prioritize work.

I know that this is a little intrusive, but here's a few things I'd like to see!

I love Geetasks, but am currently just a normal user. If I saw some (preferably all!) of this put in to Pro then I'd definitely buy it. The app is great, and your functionality is awesome for an unsupported API(?!); occasionally I get frustrated with the workflow though. To compete with other Tasks app this needs to be awesome in design - otherwise, when an API is released for Google Tasks you might lose your niche.

App:

• Push badge update. I don't think an alert is required, it would be nice to have the badge live though. I'd be willing to pay £1.50ish for that.
• On the app store, show a list of differences (on both versions) between normal and pro.

List View:

• When I press the add bar, it would be nice if tapping the dark area cancelled the action (as per normal iPhone functionality)
• The bottom bar should be fixed to the bottom. When I want to sort so that I can see a certain task at the top, it's irritating to scroll right past it first.
• The tap to refresh text is kind of annoying. On the bottom toolbar, it would be nice if the Purge button was just a bin icon, and was situated next to a refresh button. Because the purge function has the prompt ("Delete all completed tasks?") I don't think that this will be confusing for a user. Plus, do I need to see the last refresh time if the app auto-refreshes when I open it up?
• Could the Sort button work in the same way as my date suggestion? If a select menu slid up from the bottom of the screen that would be really cool. On the top there should be a "Cancel" and "Sort" buttons on the right (with 'Sort' being the rightmost).
• When I press Edit, I might make some changes I actually want to scrap. Could the Lists back button become a Cancel button whilst editing the list of tasks.

Task View:

• The Due Date element should be integrated better. Rather than being taken to a new screen, could the date menu slide up from the bottom. On top it would need a toolbar with three buttons - "Clear" on the left and "Cancel" & "Save" on the right. The space above the slide out menu should go dark, and tapping it would cancel the action.
• Could the Delete button be made the same width as the text items? It would just make a nicer GUI, and there's no more risk of accidental push because of the confirm menu (which, again, is awesome).
• Sliding right over a task should show a delete button on the right. There's a few too many taps required to delete a task right now.

Adding a New Task:

• A task with an empty title should, by default, not be created. There could be some way to override this from the App settings menu though.
• The task should not be created till I click a "Save" button. Currently the process seems to be that I'm editing a blank task. It would be smoother if I went to a screen where I created the task, which is then saved. In the add screen there should be a Save button top right, Cancel top left and the "Task Details" header should be centred on the screen (plus it could become 'Add Task'. The "Delete" button could then be gotten rid off - after all, the user hasn't actually made anything yet.

Hi Ben. This is not intrusive at all - on the contrary this is all welcome feedback. While I can't implement all suggestions I always read through all of them and pick out the ones that align with my thinking (or being asked for most frequently - that works too).

Yes, the API is not supported.

• Push badge update. I don't think an alert is required, it would be nice to have the badge live though. I'd be willing to pay £1.50ish for that.

This is on the cards, but it requires a lot of infrastructure work. I would also need to store your GMail credentials to make it work - these things take time to get absolutely right. It's also somewhat a lower priority because one could workaround the problem by simply launching the app.

• On the app store, show a list of differences (on both versions) between normal and pro.

Will do.

• When I press the add bar, it would be nice if tapping the dark area cancelled the action (as per normal iPhone functionality)

I was thinking about that as it feels natural, but then I came to conclusion that I will place a mini-calendar in there (some hyper-productive people asked for ability to quickly create tasks and set a date in one quick shot), so there won't be enough space for that. Cancel button is here to stay.

• The bottom bar should be fixed to the bottom. When I want to sort so that I can see a certain task at the top, it's irritating to scroll right past it first.

I hear you. Yes, it'll get fixed.

• The tap to refresh text is kind of annoying. On the bottom toolbar, it would be nice if the Purge button was just a bin icon, and was situated next to a refresh button. Because the purge function has the prompt ("Delete all completed tasks?") I don't think that this will be confusing for a user. Plus, do I need to see the last refresh time if the app auto-refreshes when I open it up?

I have to disagree. I answer every single support request and these subtle things make hue difference in support volume. In my other app I had exactly that - a circular-arrow sync button on the toolbar. I was flooded with requests about "where is the sync button?!". Same deal with delete and trash-can - that one was so bad I ended up removing it and adding instead a button with text "Delete Folder". You can imagine it looks ugly, but it worked very well - emails stopped completely. I know you would figure it out, but you have to realize that the 1% of the people who don't figure it out create 90% of the tech support load for me. Worse yet, for every person who emails support there are 10 who don't, and just leave angry. I don't want anyone to leave angry, even if it's "their own fault for not figuring it out". For the GeeTasks version 1.9 I had 4 one-star ratings without reviews and without any attempt to contact me. I have no idea why. Every time something is hard to find it adds more one-star ratings.

As to "last refresh time" - same problem. Next to last thing I need is people sending me emails how the app didn't sync anything at all. The last thing I need is them being quietly angry.

So this is a big problem in general and I do what's expedient to mitigate it. I probably didn't do the best thing I can do, but for now my focus is:
1. Address the needs of people who must have Google Tasks on the go, and are willing to put up with warts
2. Provide technical support to every single person who bought the app, because since they paid money they should get at least what's promised in the app store.

As I make progress towards #1 I will spend more time making the app more acceptable to everyone else - people who are not in the "must have Google Tasks" category but rather in "I want a nice Tasks app, and it wouldn't hurt if it worked with Google Tasks as well". Then I could come up with some clever ways to take off the metaphorical training wheels from those who know how to ride already.

There is a practical thing here as well - you may have no network and the app may fail to sync, and you may not realize this unless the banner at the top tells you about it. Again, there are other ways to alert you to the (relatively rare) problem, but for now I did what's expedient.

• Could the Sort button work in the same way as my date suggestion? If a select menu slid up from the bottom of the screen that would be really cool. On the top there should be a "Cancel" and "Sort" buttons on the right (with 'Sort' being the rightmost).

Yes current Sort button design is not working out very well. It's also a real pain with German localization. It's up for redesign.
I didn't understand your description though, could you clarify?

• When I press Edit, I might make some changes I actually want to scrap. Could the Lists back button become a Cancel button whilst editing the list of tasks.

The would require me to implement UNDO first. I will certainly do that, but it's not there now. Sorry.

• The Due Date element should be integrated better. Rather than being taken to a new screen, could the date menu slide up from the bottom. On top it would need a toolbar with three buttons - "Clear" on the left and "Cancel" & "Save" on the right. The space above the slide out menu should go dark, and tapping it would cancel the action.

The redesign for date picker was requested many times, I plan to turn into a real calendar. I'm not sure if/when I will have time to make it inline rather than separate screen. I'll keep it in mind.

• Could the Delete button be made the same width as the text items? It would just make a nicer GUI, and there's no more risk of accidental push because of the confirm menu (which, again, is awesome).

I already removed it completely, see next answer.

• Sliding right over a task should show a delete button on the right. There's a few too many taps required to delete a task right now.

I have implemented red-delete-cicrle thingie in the "Edit" mode, just like in mail and calendar. Let's see if this works better. I might also add the slide to delete, but we'll see what beta-testers say about this first.

• A task with an empty title should, by default, not be created. There could be some way to override this from the App settings menu though.

Ok, I'll fix it.

• The task should not be created till I click a "Save" button. Currently the process seems to be that I'm editing a blank task. It would be smoother if I went to a screen where I created the task, which is then saved. In the add screen there should be a Save button top right, Cancel top left and the "Task Details" header should be centred on the screen (plus it could become 'Add Task'. The "Delete" button could then be gotten rid off - after all, the user hasn't actually made anything yet.

Oh no. It actually used to be like that and I got a lot of complains about "the stupid Save button". It ain't coming back, you've been seriously outnumbered Ben. :-)
Once I figure out undo it will be less of a problem, too.