PROBLEM: Mac and iOS versions give different search results

You have read all the good things about this app and its iOS counterpart. They are good apps. Here is the problem.

The developers extol 2Do’s search capabilities. (Read the documentation: they claim it is the best in the App Store!) They brag about Smart Lists and how powerful they are.

But if you save a search as a Smart List on your iPhone, you will be *disappointed* to find out that the same Smart List, when synced to 2Do on your Mac, *yields entirely different search results*.

For example: 2Do 3.0 on iOS supports a search like this: “type: emptyproj OR emptychck”. Coming from OmniFocus, I saved this as a Smart List on 2Do called “Stalled Projects” because it shows me (on my iPhone) only my projects and checklists that have no tasks that belong to them. That Smart List lets me see which projects I need to add tasks to. Fantastic; iOS version works like a charm.

*Nonetheless*: the same Smart List, synced over to 2Do 2.1 on OS X, does not work. The OS X version apparently doesn’t support the same search terms. So my “Stalled Projects” Smart List shows me several projects—both with tasks and without—interspersed with about 50 other tasks that have nothing to do with my search. In a word: *useless*.

This is just one example of how the functionality differs. Another: the iOS version lets you “pause” a tag (think: “on hold” context in OmniFocus) but the OS X version does not. Consequently, the iOS version’s “!paused” (= “not paused”) search parameter does not work on OS X.

So, if you’re looking for a reliable task-management app that gives you the same lists of tasks on both your Mac and your iPhone (kind of the point, right?): look elsewhere.

Frustrating.

apkawel about 2Do