Apps

German developer Cultured Code on Thursday released Things 3, a major new iteration of its powerful personal task manager for iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad and Mac. Things 3 brings out a beautiful timeless new design with delightful interactions and animations. Aside from the new look and feel, the refreshed app is packed to the gills with a host of new features.

Released as three separate apps (they've kept the current pricing), Things 3 is Cultured Code's first paid update for existing users since versions 1.0.

Here's what developers had to say about the app's gorgeous new UI:

The all-new Things comes with an all-new design. It's not just how it looks—but also how it works, and how it feels. The interactions are delightful. The animations are smooth. The content is more structured. The concepts are clearer.

Open a to-do and you'll immediately get a sense of how the new apps feel.

Nicely animated transitions expand the selected to-do into an empty white piece of paper. You can add additional details to your to-do, neatly tucked away in the corner until you need them.

“There are no distractions here, it’s just you and your thoughts,” said developers.

The choice is yours: you can create either a simple to-do that looks like text on a piece of paper or opt for a richer to-do which may include additional details such as tags, checklists (a new feature for to-dos in Things 3), a start date, a deadline and so forth.

Speaking of to-dos, Things 3 introduces an all-new Magic Plus Button.

Found in the corner of the screen, you can tap it to quickly add a new to-do or actually drag the button to a particular list in order to generate a to-do in a specific location. Plus, managing to-dos is now way easier than before with expanded support for gestures, like dragging and dropping, swiping, tapping to expand and more.

Seasoned Things users will be delighted to know that developers have implemented one of the most-requested features: time-based reminders. For those to-dos you absolutely cannot miss, adding a reminder will give you peace of mind.

While scheduling a to-do in Jump Start, click Add Reminder and set the time. There are three ways to set the time: manually, using the app's natural language parser (just type “Wed 8pm” or some such, and you're all set) or you can speak to Siri (“Remind me to call Seb at 5am.”)

Watch the promotional video for Things 3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2R6o5t0VK_A

Things 3 now supports headings to break up complex projects into sections.

And with the app's Magic Plus Button, you can create and place headings in new projects like a pro. The app's cleaner design extends to your Today and Upcoming sections which now combine calendar events and to-dos into one unified view with a timeline at the top, giving an outline of your schedule.

A new This Evening section is your at-a-glance overview of any to-dos that you won’t get to until later in the day, like things you can only do when you get home. The This Evening section is a handy way to keep these to-dos separate from the rest, in their own discrete list.

And to help you find a needle in the haystack, Things 3 now includes a Quick Find feature.

Just pull down on any list to reveal search, which can now find content across the entire app. Quick Find also includes handy shortcuts to your to-dos, lists, tags and more.

Type Travel, another new feature in Things 3, lets you navigation to any project, area or to-do in the app. On iPad, you can now swipe away the sidebar and focus on just the current list you’re working on, both in portrait and landscape orientations.

On your Mac, Things now has a Slim Mode which cuts out distractions so you can focus on the task at hand. To enter this mode, collapse the sidebar with a two-finger swipe. Slim Mode is especially great when you’re working in macOS's Split View multitasking mode.

You can even open multiple windows in Slim Mode and drag and drop items between them.

https://culturedcode.cachefly.net/things/videos/2017-05-03-allnewthings-when/video.mp4

Developers have completely rewritten core layers of the apps, which are now shared between macOS and iOS for increased reliability. The Apple Watch app has been updated as well (it now shows checklists and headings), there's a new structure for Areas in the iOS app and you can now import data from Wunderlist or OmniFocus into Things 3.

And with TouchBar support, owners of the new MacBook Pro can take advantage of convenient access to the app's most-used commands.

Things is fully integrated with all the latest iOS technologies: Apple Watch, Calendars, Siri, Reminders, Today Widget, Quick Actions, Action Extension, Handoff and Notifications.

The apps all stay updated via Things Cloud, which is the push sync service that Cultured Code custom-built for the app. Unfortunately, iCloud syncing is not supported in Things.

For the complete overview of what's new in the app, visit the official Things website.

Things 3 for iPhone and Apple Watch is $9.99 on App Store.

Things 3 for iPad is $19.99 on App Store.

Things 3 for Mac is $49.99 on Mac App Store.

To celebrate the launch of Things 3, all apps are 20 percent off until next Thursday, May 25.

A 14-day trial of Things for Mac is available via the Cultured Code website.