Tiimo is actually bad
I’ve been sitting on this ever since Apple announced its App Store Awards winners, because I’m worried that it comes across as sour grapes. It might be.
When I saw that the iPhone App of the Year is a daily task management app, I was delighted. There is a space for Penciletin to win awards once it is established. When I actually looked at the app, I was horrified.
Not everything about Tiimo is wrong. Unlike most to-do lists out there, you can set a duration for tasks and group them into times of day. It also has a distinct style; it uses a custom font and many custom design elements.
The problem is literally everything else about it. Apple says “Instead of dumping it all into a jumbled list, the app gives each item meaning by automatically assigning it a color and an emoji.” Except that’s not true. Giving each one an emoji doesn’t make it less of a jumble, just a jumble with an emoji. Instead, you are stuck with the arbitrary order that it gives you. This is literally the only to-do list that doesn’t allow reordering. We are talking about basic functionally of almost anything in the app store, and the award goes to the only one that doesn’t do it.
Only the appointments that were set up outside the app can be moved. Most of these are meetings with other people so you shouldn’t be allowed to move them without at least a dialog box asking for confirmation. And if you do accidentally move it, it is very hard to move it back. The time is in a small font and doesn’t match up to where it was before.
There’s a built-in AI chatbot. The most annoying part of modern website design, now in your app. And you will use it. There are so many menus and buttons you have to tap through for the most basic functions that the chatbot is faster most of the time. And if you ever tried to use a chatbot to do things, you’ll understand how damming a UI slam that is.
Having an Apple App Store award that supports independent developers is great for everybody. I just wish it had higher standards