With EasyMinder, Never Forget Again
EasyMinder initially launched in the fall of 2010 and represented a breakthrough for location-based mobile applications. EasyMinder was a contracted project developed for an individual entrepreneur. It was promoted by Apple as a “New and Noteworthy” productivity app at launch.
With EasyMinder, users could set reminders tagged to geographic locations, such as shopping lists for the grocery store. When users came within a preset distance of the store, an alert sound and a message within iPhone’s Notification Center would trigger, reminding users to pick up the items they needed.
Users could select or search for items and tasks from a menu of a few hundred typical entries, or create and categorize custom items for their lists. Users could also email lists and even send importable lists to other users of the app.
I served as project manager for EasyMinder, designing much of the interface, liaising with our programming team and conducting testing of the app in the outside world. I also composed the alert sound, designed the application icon and produced the tutorial that appeared for users upon first launching the app.
Pioneering Geolocation Services
Although much of the functionality seen in EasyMinder has since been matched by Apple’s own Reminders app, launched about 18 months after EasyMinder, no available application matches the versatility offered by EasyMinder, including a wide range of possible alert zones, a standard list of items and more. EasyMinder was also compatible with the iPhone 3G and 3GS, as well as with the iPhone 4, with its functionality downgrading gracefully to match the navigational capabilities of older devices.
I’m proud of the breakthroughs we made on the project, which tested the limits of iPhone from both hardware and software perspectives and made available to users functionality that wasn’t integrated into the iPhone platform until well after its release.
Hear the alert tone I composed for EasyMinder here: