One of the best features of iOS 5 on the iPhone is the Reminders app. Your iPhone can remind you to do tasks on a specific date and time, which is very useful, but I especially love location-based reminders that remind you to do something when you arrive at, or leave, a specific location such as your office, your home, or any other address in your Contacts list. Yesterday, Lex Friedman of Macworld wrote a great article about using the Reminders app that I strongly encourage you to read so that you can fully take advantage of reminders on the iPhone. Friedman also linked to an article he wrote last November about how you can share reminders with another iPhone user using iCloud. For example, you can share a grocery list with your spouse, and either of you can use your iPhone (or iPad) to update the shared list.
If you have an iPhone 4S, the Reminders app is even more handy because you can just tell your iPhone to remind you of something, which is much faster than tapping the app icon and typing in all of the information needed to create a reminder. Just tell your iPhone “Remind me to pick up my dry cleaning when I leave work” and Siri takes care of the rest.
One tip not mentioned by Friedman conerns using the Reminders app if you sync your iPhone with a Microsoft Exhchange server. The default setting is to sync Mail, Contacts, Calendars … and Reminders. That sounds like a good idea — the Reminders app on your iPhone can share items with the Tasks tab in Microsoft Outlook — but be aware that if you have this turned on, you will not be able to use location-based reminders because that is not a feature supported by Microsoft Office. To fix this, go to Settings -> Mail, Contacts, Calendars and then tap on your Exchange account. Then simply make sure that Reminders is set to off:
Unless it is really important to you for your tasks to show up in Outlook on your computer, I recommend that you keep this turned off so that you can have your iPhone remind you to do things based upon where you are located.
I have a plain old iPhone 4, and I sync to an Exchange account. When I go to the Reminders app the first list I see is generally Tasks, which syncs to my Exchange account and doesn’t use location-based reminders as you said above. However, if I swipe to right to left, I get to the Reminders list, which still uses location without having to disable my exchange account tasks.
I have been using the Reminders app. There is a completed list, task list and reminders list within it. I know the tasks list within the Reminders app will synce to Microsoft exchange server, but I don’t think the Reminder list does. I want both to sync to Exchange. Any thoughts?
You can actually do both location-based reminders and still sync with Exchange. I do it all the time. It has a “reminders” page for iPhone-based reminders that sync with iCloud and support the location-based. Then there are the “tasks” page(s) that sync with Exchange; only those do not support location-based.
Several people have noted that you can have both location-based reminders and Exchange tasks enabled. I’ve had Exchange turned off for a while because I was having problems when I had both enabled. For example, when I tried to create location-based reminders with Siri but I still had tasks syncing with Exchange, Siri wouldn’t always work.
I suppose the bottom line is that if you turn off the Exchange sync, I know that location-based reminders work fine. If you want to also use Exchange sync for tasks, please be aware that you may run into problems (like I did) or maybe you’ll have some luck like a few of those who posted above.
For me, having reminders of any sort on Exchange (i.e. on Outlook on my computer) is not that valuable. My iPhone does a much better job of telling me when I have things to do, and it is much more convenient to manage tasks on an iPhone that is with me all the time (or on my iPad) versus on my computer. The only advantage of the computer is the full keyboard, but most tasks are just a few words anyway so it is no burden to type them on an iPhone or iPad, not to mention it is very easy to add them by voice using Siri. Thus, not syncing tasks from my iPhone to my computer running Exchange has not been a problem for me.
But if you want to try it, using the advice posted above in the comments by others, good luck!
-Jeff
I do not use this feature, but I have read in a number of places that use of location-based reminders leads to serious battery drainage. Have you heard this?
[Jeff responds: It does use more battery life, but I wouldn’t call it “serious” battery drainage. But I am pretty good about charging my iPhone at my desk during the day and carrying around external batteries when I travel, so perhaps others have a different story to tell.]
I have been using the Reminders app. There is a completed list, task list and reminders list within it. I know the tasks list within the Reminders app will synce to Microsoft exchange server, but I don’t think the Reminder list does. I want both to sync to Exchange. Any thoughts?