Problem

One of the obvious missing items from the iPhone (and Mac for that matter) ecosystem is Tasks.  The iPhone has mail, calendar, and contacts but no tasks.  Sure there are plenty of online task applications such as Remember the Milk, Ta-Da List, and Gubb among a lot of others.  These really do not work for me because I live and breath in Outlook and none of these solutions sync with Outlook (although Gubb can import/export tasks).

Problem #2

Another issue of my task management strategy in addition to Outlook syncing is that I like having a mobile solution for creating tasks.  The iPhone can accomplish this through the use of the Safari browser.  All of the online task applications that I mentioned before do have a mobile (and is some instances an iPhone specific version) of their application.  This is nice but again these do not sync with Outlook.

So what is my solution?  How did I get my tasks in Outlook when I enter them in my iPhone?  Read on...

Solution

Enter the new Plaxo.  Plaxo used to be just a contact management system but now recent updates have them more of a social network aggregator.  One of the new features that they offer with their 3.0 beta is a technology called Sync Points.  You can sync your address book, calander, and tasks between several sources including Outlook, Google, LinkedIn, and Yahoo.  This is a really nice feature because now your PIM information can be synced between Plaxo Online, Outlook, Google, and Yahoo.  The best part is that you can have multiple Outlook sync points so you can sync your work and personal Outlook information for example.

The Way I Make It Work

The way that I use this to sync my tasks with the iPhone is that I installed Plaxo on my Outlook.  Outlook gets my task information from my hosted Exchange server.  I can add a task via Outlook, Plaxo Online, or my Outlook web access and they are all synced.  I can also go to the mobile version of Plaxo (no iPhone specific version yet), enter a task there and it will be synced with my Exchange server once my Outlook syncs it via the Plaxo plugin.  Plaxo only allows you to enter a date and a title for a task but you can at least capture the task and add additional details if necessary when you get back to Outlook or OWA.  It is very seemless.

No iPhone SDK Challenge

Another challenge when entering tasks on the iPhone is the lack of a true SDK.  Bringing up the browser, navigating to Plaxo mobile, and entering a task can be time consuming (especially when using EDGE) and not always appropriate in certain situations (like when driving).  This sometimes gets in the way of capturing information when I think of it and sometimes it causes tasks not to be captured.  The way that I get around this is to use Jott.  Jott is an awesome application.  It allows you to call a number from your phone and leave a message for yourself.  Jott then transcribes this to text and emails you the voice message with the body containing the transcribed text.  I use this to leave myself a reminder to "Pick up the milk" and I let Jott send this message to my Outlook.  In Outlook, I create a Task from the message by dragging it to the Task list or use ClearContext.  This task is then synced with Plaxo and all my other sync points.  Very nice and allows me to capture everything.

Extra Jott

Jott also allows you to leave messages for anyone in your contact list or a group of people.  They just added some features that allow you to create a blog post or Twitter message by calling Jott or create a reminder among other things.  Best of all, it's all free right now.