MACSTORIES EXTRAS

More stories for Club members.

Going All-In with Reminders Tags and Smart Lists

• Federico

I have a theory: when it comes to Reminders, Apple cares more about tagging than they do about traditional lists. Think about it: regular lists have been essentially left untouched for the past several years; meanwhile, tags have been implemented cross-platform, in two apps (Notes and Reminders), and they are at the foundation of smart lists, which were the major addition to Reminders last year. And that’s not all: the design of the Reminders app itself revolves heavily around smart lists (the default ones at the top are, effectively, smart lists made by Apple), and the Reminders app only supports auto-complete for tags, making the life of those who want to carefully organize their tasks into lists ever so slightly more challenging.

So a few days ago, I had a thought: what if I stopped using multiple lists altogether and instead fully embraced tagging and smart lists? This seems to be the more modern experience that Apple is pushing and refining every year, so I figured it’d be fun to at least try to see what a list-free experience in Reminders would feel like.