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Things for Mac, iPad, and iPhone gets a speed boost, improved time zone support

The Things to-do management app for Mac OS X, iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch has been updated today with speed improvements for both the actual application and for downloading and syncing with the Things Cloud service.

We’ve identified the resource hogs and improved performance in key areas that were troublesome in the past. Below are some measurements we took before and after these improvements. Overall, the app now feels much more responsive, especially when you perform an action on multiple items at once.

Additionally, the application’s time zone support has been improved.

For this release we’ve been through and carefully adjusted all the date-related functionality in Things. It’s been a considerable amount of work, but these improvements – which affect scheduled dates, due dates, repeating tasks, local notifications, and the Daily Review – are a good and necessary foundation going forward.

I’ve been testing out the app updates for a couple of months now, and the improvements seem to live up to Cultured Code’s (the developer) claims.

Things is meant for users with many to-dos that need to sort their work into projects. With that in mind, the suite is a bit pricier than applications in the same category: Things for Mac (49.99), Things for iPad ($19.99), Things for iPhone/iPod touch($9.99). The three apps sync with a free Things Cloud system.

Release notes below:

OS X:

  • Major performance improvements across the app.
  • More robust handling of dates when traveling between time zones.
  • Downloading to-dos from Things Cloud is now even faster.
  • Added new Things Cloud update trigger: when returning to an idle Mac, Things will automatically update with Things Cloud.
  • Enabled Spelling & Grammar correction and Smart Links by default in the titles and notes of to-dos and Projects.
  • Indented badge pills in the source list to better accommodate the scroll bar.
  • Improved Things’ handling of email messages dragged and dropped onto the dock icon or notes field.
  • Improved cloud indicator for when the Mac is offline or Things Cloud cannot be reached.
  • Improved behavior of contextual menus in text fields.
  • Improved formatting of dates in the Logbook.
  • Fixed an issue where to-dos would be extracted from a Project when it was moved to the trash.
  • Fixed an issue where to-dos dragged and dropped from the inbox wouldn’t appear at the correct position in the destination list: the top of an Area, the bottom of a Project.
  • Fixed an issue where to-dos created via AppleScript could appear out of order.
  • Fixed an issue where items in Scheduled or the Daily Review could show up in an apparently random order (for humans).
  • Fixed an issue that could cause a Project’s notes to disappear for some users.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Things to crash when creating tags with certain characters.
  • Updated HockeyApp framework.

iPad:

• More robust handling of dates when traveling between time zones.
• Downloading to-dos from Things Cloud is now even faster.
• Over 40 other bug fixes and improvements.

iPhone/iPod touch:

• More robust handling of dates when traveling between time zones.
• Downloading to-dos from Things Cloud is now even faster.
• Over 40 other bug fixes and improvements.

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