Nearly everyone in the world has to manage tasks on some level. Wether it’s a simple to-do list, project management, the “honey do” list, or nearly anything in between, task management is a way of life. There are a ton of to-do list applications for the iPhone, but are any of them any good? I’ve narrowed down this article to three services that offer both an iPhone App and website. All three iPhone Apps provide offline access which is a must these days.

Zenbe Lists

Zenbe Lists is a free service offered by Zenbe. The website is free to use, but the iPhone App (iTunes link) will set you back $3. I’ve been using the iPhone App since it first came out and was free. The iPhone App and website are pretty basic, but do provide a usable product.

One nice feature of Zenbe Lists is that it allows you to share a list with someone else. This can come in handy for certain lists, especially something like a grocery list. You can rearrange lists and items within a list with ease. The Due Date functionality is pretty basic however. When an item is overdue, it does not show an icon badge or move that item to the top of the list. Once items have been checked off, they move to the bottom of that list instead of removing them from view. I’ve had issues of items duplicating and I can’t seem to figure out why. Items can’t contain notes or really any other information. The Zenbe Lists website is also pretty barebones.

Remember The Milk

Remember The Milk (RTM) uses a freemium model. The basic service is free, and a Pro account costs $25 a year. Though the iPhone App (iTunes link) is free, you need a Pro account to use it. The combination of iPhone App and website make for a great experience.

I really can’t think of anything that Remember The Milk doesn’t do well. You can assign due dates with ease, which then rise to the top of your lists and also show up via a icon badge. You can create multiple notes per item and give tags, URLs, time estimates, location, and more. The iPhone App is organized well and the UI is great. It’s easy to see upcoming task and to browse your lists. The website offers the ability to share and publish your tasks, RSS, iCal support, and much more.

Google Tasks and GeeTasks
Google Tasks are accessed inside of your Gmail account and is absolutely free. For the iPhone App, GeeTasks (iTunes link) by Memengo costs just $3. If you want to use Google Tasks with your Google Apps domain, you’ll need the $6 GeeTasksPro (iTunes link).

As with many Google products, the UI in Google Tasks is minimal. You can access Google Tasks as a little pop up while in Gmail or expand it into its own browser tab. While the UI is minimal, you do have functionality that goes beyond the basics. You can print your task lists, email the lists, create sub tasks (indented tasks really), purge your completed tasks, and see your completed tasks separately. You also have various sorting options when viewing your tasks. You can also assign notes to your tasks. You can also turn any Gmail message into a task and view your tasks on Google Calendar and iGoogle.

You can do a lot with GeeTasks that you can do inside Google Tasks. GeeTasks shows a icon badge with your number of tasks. I’d like the icon badge more if it showed the number of overdue or tasks due today, instead of the total number of tasks. You can create and edit tasks, add and remove notes, and change due dates. I didn’t find a way to add lists, but that may be a Google Tasks API limitation. The 4 different view options inside GeeTasks is a nice touch. The developer mentions on the iTunes page that sub-tasks and task rearrangement is coming in the new year. If those two additions and list creation are added, it will really round out the GeeTasks App. When I spoke with the developer over email, he was really responsive; that’s always a nice touch.

So where does this leave us? If task management is really important and you have the money to spare, I’d go with Remember The Milk. The features of the website along with the iPhone App make for a high quality task management solution. I’ve had a RTM Pro subscription for the last year (it actually ran out today), but I don’t think I’m going to renew it. If you need task management but aren’t a super task management ninja, I’m recommending the combination of Google Tasks and GeeTasks. The combination of Google Tasks and GeeTasks provides above basic task management with superior Google integration and offline support at a good price. I’m going to switch my task management to Google Tasks and GeeTasks and see how it goes.

Update (12/27/2009): Just as I was finishing this post, I ran across another website and iPhone App combination, Toodledo. The iPhone App (iTunes link) costs $2 and the website uses the freemium model. I didn’t have time to test Toodledo, but it does look promising.

Update (1/1/2010): Denis, the GeeTasks developer, emailed me to let me know that the update containing the sub-tasks and task rearrangement is now live in the App Store. In addition to that, you can go into the Settings App and change the behavior of the GeeTasks icon badge to show the tasks due today/overdue just like I commented about in the original article. Thanks Denis!

Do you own a website? Do you own an iPhone or iPod touch? Do you often wonder what your visitors do while visiting your website? If you answered yes to all the above questions, you’re probably going to want to read on.

Web Analytics are certainly not a new topic. Google Analytics, Site Meter, and a million other services have been around for some time. Of those services, how many have a iPhone specific web interface? I’m only aware of one service that offers a iPhone specific interface for their analytics. That one service is Clicky.

Clicky is a web analytics service similar to the ones mentioned above. They offer plans ranging from free to $99 a year. Though Clicky offers similar features to some of the other analytics services, things like FeedBurner stats, Twitter users, RSS feeds, and other features do separate them from the crowd. You can view a chart of Clicky features vs. some of the other services here.

But the reason I’m talking about them today is their iPhone specific website. Once you login, you’re able to see all the website you track with Clicky in a nice iPhone specific interface.

This screen shows you the available time frames you’re able to look at. As you would expect, just tap the time frame you wish to view stats for.

Other views include the pages being viewed, inbound links, overview of traffic sources (links, direct, search engines, etc), search keywords, screen resolution, browser usage, and many of the familiar metrics you’re used to seeing in analytics software.

I’ve really only scratched the surface on the views available with the iPhone website for Clicky. If you’re an iPhone toting analytics junkie, Clicky might be your new habit. All new accounts automatically get a trial of the Pro service ($50/year) free for 21 days. If after that you don’t want to keep the pro service, you can continue using the free plan. Go ahead, give Clicky a try.

Despite the amazing functions and styling of the iPhone, some people still aren’t happy. In todays web-centric world, where do people go to vent their frustrations? The internet of course!

Please Fix The iPhone is a website dedicated to those who want to tell Steve Jobs and Apple what is lacking from their favorite mobile phone. The website allows you to vote on existing wishes or submit your own wish. Wishes range from the obvious MMS and copy & paste, to “files and folder management”.

The website is beautifully designed and easy to navigate. You can navigate the wishes by searching for your wish, browsing by tags, viewing the most wanted wishes, and viewing the most recent wishes. “Fixed” wishes are also kept on the website, though some of the “Fixed” wishes are people that are requesting functionality that already exists or things that would need to be fixed by parties other than Apple.

As you would expect, Please Fix The iPhone has a iPhone optimized version of the website. Just visit the site in Mobile Safari to view the iPhone optimized version.

If you want to make your iPhone wishes known, Please Fix The iPhone is a great place to do so. The big question with the website is, is Apple listening? The folks behind Please Fix The iPhone are basically doing free market research for Apple, so it would be wise of them to listen. I already voted for my wishes. I’m crossing my fingers that we’ll see copy & paste by software version 2.5!

If you’ve spent any time on the Mac, no doubt you have seen the icon to the right. NetNewsWire has been around for over five years and was one of the early RSS readers available for the Mac. NetNewsWire was originally shareware, but went freeware earlier this year.

For the first time, the Software Pick Of The Month is actually multiple applications. Collectively, all applications are from NewsGator.

I’ve talked about NetNewsWire many times on this blog. If you have used Mail.app, you know how to get around NewNewsWire. On the left is a list of blogs, on the top right pane is a list of posts, the bottom right is the text of the currently selected post. You also have something called clippings, which is kind of like an inbox for posts you want to come back to later. The UI is clean and a search box allows you to easily find a post within a feed. You can see a small screenshot of the application below.

Up next is NetNewsWire. Again? You bet, NetNewsWire for iPhone (iTunes link). Basically NetNewsWire for iPhone is a scaled down version of the full blown Mac client. The best feature of NetNewsWire for iPhone is that you can use it offline, just like the Mac version. While the iPhone version isn’t perfect, it’s pretty good. It would be great if you could mark posts as unread and if pictures were downloaded with the post so you can see them while you are offline. Despite those two gripes, NetNewsWire is a great addition to any iPhone.

In addition to a Mac and iPhone client, there is also a web application. NewsGator Online allows you to view your feeds online. It’s features are similar to many online RSS readers so I won’t bore you with the details. One very handy feature is that you can manage which feeds show up on the iPhone client. If you only want to see your must read feeds on NNW for iPhone, it’s easy to do so with NewsGator Online.

Last but not least, NewsGator online mobile edition. NewsGator mobile gives you a slimmed down version of NewsGator Online. You can visit NewsGator mobile on any phone. If you visit it on your iPhone, you’ll automatically be redirected to the iPhone optimized version. I still use NewsGator mobile despite having NNW for iPhone installed too. Why? NewsGator mobile allows you to view a post, but not have it marked as read until you click the “Read” link. This is handy if you encounter a long post that you want to come back to later. Viewing the post on NNW for iPhone marks it as read.

So why on earth did I choose all these applications for the Software Pick Of The Month? It’s all about one word really, synchronization. While you can use these products by themselves, they are designed to be used together. NewsGator has designed a powerful synchronization engine behind their product lineup.

Once you sign up for NewsGator Online (top right corner), you are ready to enter RSS reading bliss. Within both NNW for Mac and NNW for iPhone, you sign into your NewsGator account and the client will download all the feeds you are subscribed to. When you mark any post as read, that change is synchronized across all other NewsGator clients that you are using. When you delete a feed on one client, the feed gets deleted on the others. I can read a post a work, home, or on the go and the change is reflected on every NewsGator product I’m using. There is even a RSS reader for Windows from NewsGator called FeedDemon.

Simply put, if you read RSS feeds from more than one location, you’re missing out if you aren’t using NewsGator’s products. I simply can’t recommend their products enough. If synchronization matters to you, check out the products mentioned in this post. If you aren’t using NewsGators products, what are you using and why? Let me know in the comments.

Even though the iPhone 3G launch is just days away, we shouldn’t forget about those great iPhone optimized websites. Some of these iPhone optimized websites may be shuttered in favor of an iPhone application, but some might stick around. I’ve been meaning to write about the following iPhone website for nearly a year now, but I’m just now getting around to it. I’ve used this website for nearly the entire time I’ve had my iPhone.

It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of NetNewsWire. I’ve written about it many times before. One of the reasons I love the application is the accompaniment of several other ways to access your feeds beside the Mac desktop application. The folks behind NetNewsWire, NewsGator, have a Windows product, a mobile application, a web app, a mobile web app, and an iPhone specific web app.

The iPhone web application (pictured here) syncs with all the other NewsGator RSS products, so any changes to your feeds using the iPhone optimized website are reflected in whatever other NewsGator products you are using. This syncing ability is the main selling point for me.

Clicking a feed name brings you to the 20 most recent unread posts in that feed with about the first 25 or so words of the post. A tap of the more link will expand the post to the full text. As you mark each post read, it will disappear from your feed. Clicking the “Page Read” link at the bottom of the page will mark all remaining posts on that page as read. The UI is great, making this iPhone optimized website very easy to use.

The only downside to the web app is that you can’t add feeds or mark a previously read feed as unread. The ability to add feeds is certainly not a big deal as this would add confusion to the ease of use of this great website. By not allowing you to mark posts as unread, it keeps the web app from downloading unnecessary data keeping the app speedy.

If you have a NewsGator account, just head on over to the NewsGator Mobile site, and you’ll be automatically redirected to the iPhone optimized website if you’re using an iPhone or iPod touch. Sign in and you’ll see your feeds! It’s really as simple as that.

Up later this week: I’ll feature the only other iPhone optimized website I use on a near daily basis.