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NotifyMe 2, an app from PoweryBase, is available for US$5.99 at the App Store.
A few months ago, I reviewed an app called "NotifyMe." The reason I started looking at it in the first place was because I thought it might provide a function I personally could really use: a hard-nosed nag machine, a reminder service that would not stop pestering the user every X minutes until you actively, forcefully tell it to lay the hell off. Until that happens -- until you open the app, select the task and poke some button that designates it as finished (or just erase the task altogether) -- it will keep pestering you, every hour, through the ages, until the Earth crashes into the Sun.
That's the app I was hoping for. Yeah, it sounds like a pretty annoying little cup of code, but sometimes annoying is the best way to get results. Sometimes it's way too easy to get lost in a dozen layers of multitasking madness, and no matter how deep a pile of distraction you dig yourself into, a good reminder app should remain single-minded and relentless in achieving its goal: to slap you on the back of the head every so often until you tell it in no uncertain terms that this task -- this thing you said was super-duper important three days ago when you made the reminder -- is finally finished.
Back in February, I found the original NotifyMe to be a little weak-willed with its reminder capabilities. Recently, PoweryBase updated the app with a bunch of new features -- apparently enough to justify naming it as a sequel: NotifyMe 2. However, my main complaint about the original remains: It still needs to be more obnoxious. In fact, one of the new features advertised in the App Store (Autosnooze: keep alerting infinitely until done) simply didn't work.
Give Me a Buzz
On startup, the app asks to enable push notifications, which you probably will want to do. In order to get the most features out of NotifyMe 2, you'll also have to set up an online account using your email and a password. This can be done through the app.
Once finished, you're able to create two varieties of new reminders for yourself . Push reminders are described as "online based, advanced alerts," and local reminders are "offline, simple" alerts. Online reminders make themselves known via push notifications, and they can be shared over the air with other people you know who also use the application. You can set title, time, how often this reminder should come up (whether it's a one-off task or something that happens every month, for example), category, a pre-alert interval, autosnooze interval, sharing groups, the tone it plays when it pops up, and additional notes.
Local reminders exist only in the mind of your phone. Settings there are limited to title, repeating, category, tone and additional notes -- no sharing or autosnooze.
Here's an example of one test run I did to create a new online push reminder: I set a note to go off at 1:15, with autosnooze set for continuous 10-minute reminders. At 1:15, I got the push notification, chirpy sound, etc. But I pretended I was in a meeting, so I let the phone sit there. At 1:25, right on time, the autosnooze kicked in and gave me a second reminder. Again, I let the phone be. I received no additional buzzes at 1:35 and 1:45.
At 1:48, I unlocked the screen and saw that the latest pop-up message was still there. That might serve to remind me to do something, but what if I'd unlocked the phone to make an urgent call, and I'd really like to be reminded yet again in another 10 minutes?
Apparently, that will require a manual reset. Even though I never marked the task as completed, and even though the App Store entry on this item reads "keep alerting infinitely until done," that autosnooze feature gave up on me. The test task remained in my Upcoming folder, and it asked me whether I was sure I really wanted to delete it every time I tapped it, but push notifications just stopped happening. I went through this test several times, and the results were the same.
Strangely, a few of the more critical reviewers in the App Store claim they can't get their snooze reminders to STOP coming up every few minutes -- even when they delete the app from the phone completely.
Local reminders -- reminders stored in the device's memory rather than the cloud -- aren't much more persistent. They have no autosnooze function. You get just one buzz at the time of the notification, though the popup window will stay up for a while, so you can see it when you eventually unlock the screen. A local reminder will also set a red corner badge on the app's icon, which could serve as a somewhat persistent reminder that some sort of task is waiting. But once you look at what that task is, the badge disappears, even if you haven't gone in and nixed the task.
Bottom Line
PoweryBase has added a few new features that might make longtime users take notice, like differentiating between local notifications and online push notes, as well as the ability to share with other users. I also don't recall there being much of a selection of notification tones in the old edition; here you can choose.
However, dogged persistence in reminding the user about the task -- rapping him or her on the head until the job gets done -- still doesn't seem to be part of the package.
