Apple Reminders
in progress
Colin Delehanty
I forget if this has been requested yet and if it's even possible. I work on Windows mostly but would be so nice if I didn't have to leave Apple Reminders behind.
Ashutosh Priyadarshy
Apple Reminders Beta Updates:
Today we shipped some big updates based on your feedback. The most important thing we did was add completion sync and get rid of the default behavior that deletes Reminders on Import, that's now an opt in setting.
🔔 Make sure you are on Desktop App version 3.0.1 or later to get these changes (you can "Check for updates" in the menu bar).
Here's what's new:
- Completion Sync - When you import a task now, it is not deleted by default. Instead it's completed whenever you check off the task in Sunsama (Desktop app only).
- Channel <> List Sync - Connect an Apple Reminder list to a channel, when you import an item from that list, it gets assigned to that channel.
- Delete on Import Setting - There's a setting, you can choose to toggle on, that will delete Apple Reminders on import, if you want things to only be in one list at a time.
- Hide on Import - If you import an Apple Reminder in Sunsama, it will be hidden in the right hand panel.
We also shipped some smaller bug fixes:
- Fix bugs with tasks not showing in the "Today" section correctly
- Show all of the reminder text title in the right panel
- Adds "Past" section for the "Today" and "Scheduled" special lists
- Shows "Today" in due dates instead of the date when it's due today
- ...and dozens of smaller things not worth mentioning :)
Next up: We'll be adding support for Auto Import i.e. tasks get imported from Apple Reminders into Sunsama automatically without you needing to drag and drop them!
Nadezda Gurska
I really appreciate you listen your users and added it. Great work.
Tofi Buzali
Ashutosh Priyadarshy, Alex Cunningham
Can I get beta access please?
Alex Cunningham
Tofi Buzali Hi Tofi, you can now do this yourself. Go to Settings, see Apple Reminders listed, and toggle it on!
Julia Di Nardo
I would love to get access to the Beta! Is there a way to gain access?
Alex Cunningham
Julia Di Nardo Hey Julie, please reach out in Support; I can't find your Sunsama email.
Henrik Schulz
Hey Ashutosh Priyadarshy I would greatly appreciate if you could add me to the BETA test group. I dont have an existing Reminders workflow yet but intend to switch to it. With Apple Intelligence on the horizon I want to stick to Sunsama + Apple tools only (notes, reminders, calendar, ..)
Alex Cunningham
Henrik Schulz just gave you beta access. You should see it in your Sunsama settings now. Reach out in support if you have any issues.
Jacob Hailey
I would love to join the beta if slots are available.
Alex Cunningham
Jacob Hailey just gave you beta access. You should see it in your Sunsama settings now. Reach out in support if you have any issues.
Ashutosh Priyadarshy
Apple Reminders Beta Updates:
Today we shipped some big updates based on your feedback. The most important thing we did was add completion sync and get rid of the default behavior that deletes Reminders on Import, that's now an opt in setting.
🔔 Make sure you are on Desktop App version 3.0.1 or later to get these changes (you can "Check for updates" in the menu bar).
Here's what's new:
- Completion Sync - When you import a task now, it is not deleted by default. Instead it's completed whenever you check off the task in Sunsama (Desktop app only).
- Channel <> List Sync - Connect an Apple Reminder list to a channel, when you import an item from that list, it gets assigned to that channel.
- Delete on Import Setting - There's a setting, you can choose to toggle on, that will delete Apple Reminders on import, if you want things to only be in one list at a time.
- Hide on Import - If you import an Apple Reminder in Sunsama, it will be hidden in the right hand panel.
We also shipped some smaller bug fixes:
- Fix bugs with tasks not showing in the "Today" section correctly
- Show all of the reminder text title in the right panel
- Adds "Past" section for the "Today" and "Scheduled" special lists
- Shows "Today" in due dates instead of the date when it's due today
- ...and dozens of smaller things not worth mentioning :)
Next up: We'll be adding support for Auto Import i.e. tasks get imported from Apple Reminders into Sunsama automatically without you needing to drag and drop them!
Maddy Staines
Ashutosh Priyadarshy Woohoooo I am so excited about this!! How does one get access to the beta? I am so excited to be able to incorporate Apple reminders with Sunsama- I think of Sunsama as my "homebase" where I can organize all of my sources of tasks/todos, and Apple reminders is my primary brain dump area because of the widgets, Siri integration, and flexibility with apple shortcuts. I'm excited to be able to link the two tools and more than happy to provide feedback if you are still looking for some case study examples, but it sounds like you guy have already made all of the features I would have asked for!
Ashutosh Priyadarshy
Maddy Staines I just granted you access. Head to your workspace settings and turn it on and make sure you update to Desktop app 3.0.1
Fan Fu
Ashutosh Priyadarshy Great! May I get access to the beta? Thanks!
Alex Cunningham
Fan Fu I just gave you access. Go to your settings and you should see Apple Reminders there. Reach out in support if you have any issues.
Rebecca C
Ashutosh Priyadarshy I've now connected this, it's really great! I have 2 questions about future improvements (are they possible/likely) - 1) could any URL be imported to Sunsama as well as the task name, date, list etc? (I know Apple has some limitations eg on reading tags, but I believe urls are fetchable). 2) will it eventually be possible to mark off a task anywhere eg on web / mobile and have it marked as complete in Reminders?
Ashutosh Priyadarshy
Rebecca C
1) URL - Unfortunately, these are not supported or exposed at all by the Apple Reminders (EventKit) API. There's nothing more we can do here till Apple updates their APIs.
2) Completion Anywhere - We will support checking off the app on mobile and marking it completed before we go live with this feature. We're also looking into a sync mechanism so that if you do complete the task on web, the next time you log into Sunsama on a iOS or OS X device, we sync the completion.
Maddy Staines
Ashutosh Priyadarshy Thank you! I've been playing with it for a few days now and finding it very useful! Thank you guys for building this! :)
Ashutosh Priyadarshy
in progress
Our Apple Reminders integration is in progress! In the next week or so, we should be ready to start rolling out access to the closed beta.
We've been able to put together a basic beta version that will be available on the OS X Desktop apps to start. Now that we've got a lot of the basic functionality working, we want to learn from actual customers to fine tune the UX, UI, and some of the synchronization behaviors.
As we often do, I'd like to offer expedited access to the beta to anyone willing to share a bit about their workflow and needs in a screen recording.
Please send me an email (ashutosh@sunsama.com) where you share a short screen recording explaining your Apple reminders workflow today. We'd love to see how you use Apple reminders today (it's all those little details on how you use tags, what lists you have etc, that guide our design decisions). I'd also love hear you just talk through what an ideal Sunsama + Apple Reminders integration would look like for you!
Mike Oh
Ashutosh Priyadarshy, BRAVO! EventKit! AHA! Awesome! OF COURSE! :)
I’m adding a few use cases here so folks can Like. I’ll send the rest by mail.
- Shopping List, Groceries, now a “special” Reminders list type.
- (for info only, because I hate food waste, and I’m always forgetting what I have at home) I use the Grocery - Smart Shopping List app (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/grocery-smart-shopping-list/id1195676848 ) to manage my pantry and fridge, and my recipes and meal planning.
Groceries synchronizes the stuff i have to buy with my “Shopping” (Grocery) list in Reminders.
I also quite frequently dictate to Watch to “add (some grocery) to my Shopping list”
- Sunsama dream (Groceries): upon finding items in my groceries list during my week planning or day planning task, Prompt me to time block a “Groceries Trip” into Sunsama and add the items as subtasks. Add it to my calendar as well. Ideally, this would automatically align with whatever channel I’ve designated as #personal.
I think this would do well with folks that have Apple Family Reminder lists setup, and that those include a shared “Family Groceries”-type list.
Groceries app also has capability to track separate lists for specific stores, but it’s outside the 80/20 and doesn’t even make my nice-to-have list.
Mike Oh
Ashutosh Priyadarshy, one more…
- Linc, Friendship Tracker.
- I currently use the Linc - Friendship Tracker app (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/linc-friendship-tracker/id1513780616 ) to manage my extended relationship circles and keep me on track to stay in touch with people. It feeds into a specific Social list in Reminders. These reminders are set for a specific time of day depending upon the relationship tier (business comes mid-morning, personal ones come early evening)
- Sunsama dream (Linc):
- It would be so cool if certain Reminders lists’ tasks could be configured/designated as “auto-import” during the daily plan. AND if the ~time could be matched with whatever time is set for “due” time in the reminder.
- AI remembers my planned-time choice for Reminders with recognized keywords from previous choices.
- AI also remembers my choice for channel (#personal > #social, etc.) based on previous choices.
- Reminders must be two-way synch with Sunsama for edits and completion status
- Once recognized and imported into Sunsama, as is the case for other stuff imported into Sunsama, they should not appear in the inbox Reminders tab at right
- As with other imported objects, I should be able to search for them across Sunsama.
Rebecca C
Ashutosh Priyadarshy I was so happy to hear this! I currently use Reminders for all my personal tasks, large and small, mainly because it’s so quick & easy to add things from anywhere. I’m just wondering if there’s any kind of
ETA on rolling it out
. I’ve been toying with putting my personal stuff into Sunsama but would much rather integrate with the lists I already have.Ashutosh Priyadarshy
Rebecca C It's already available in beta and we're probably able to roll it out to all users in the next few weeks give or take. It's always hard to know how much feedback we get in the beta that we need to act on but it feels like we're at the tail end of that.
I'll grant you access to the beta now.
Nick Fredman
Hi Ashutosh Priyadarshy - I'd love to test the integration as well and am happy to provide some UX feedback on how it's going. I plan my day with Claude in the AM based on the tasks in my reminders lists. My plan is to port these over into sunsama for my tracking throughout the day and my review time.
I was a things3 user for a long time and a todoist user as well so I have a pretty good feeling about how other task managers handle the back and forth.
Nicole Bouwman
Ashutosh Priyadarshy This is awesome, can I get access to the beta as well?
Alex Cunningham
Nicole Bouwman just granted you access, you should see it in your Sunsama settings now. Reach out in support if you have any issues.
Alex Cunningham
Nick Fredman just gave you beta access. You should see it in your Sunsama settings now. Reach out in support if you have any issues.
Craig
Certainly not "impossible." Many other Apple apps do it.
I subscribe to SetApp and BusyCal, Calendars, Session all integrate Apple/iCloud Calendar and Reminders into their respective apps rather well. Their limitations, in most cases, with integrating Reminders have more to do with Apple's limitations than the respective dev teams.
Bruno Bernardino
We have started looking into possibility of building this integration this week, and have confirmed it's currently impossible. Apple Reminders does not provide any Web API to integrate with, and they stopped using the CalDav protocol for Reminders on iOS 13 and macOS Catalina (~2020).
Unless that changes, we can't build it, unfortunately.
Máté Bence Tóth
Bruno Bernardino do you know what solution does Structured app use to integrate with Apple Reminders?
Alice Fritz
Bruno Bernardino How does Fantastical do it?
Bruno Bernardino
Great questions! Those are not web apps like Sunsama. They have access to EventKit, available on iOS, iPadOS, and macOS: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/eventkit/retrieving_events_and_reminders
Sorry I didn't make that clear in the original post.
Emmanuel Guillaud
Bruno Bernardino Things has a very nice integration as well that works beautifully.
I am not a specialist but Sunsama's MacOs or iOS versions could not use the EventKit you mention?
Sunsama's lackluster integration with Apple Ecosystem is really sad :-(
Tony Mann
Bruno Bernardino If you build a native bridge in your mobile app you can do it.
Larry Mccutchan
Bruno Bernardino. This does not seem right. There are many apps that do this. IFfT does it as well. If WebKit does it, then relay through the native app on the desktop if someone wants that feature. Impossible just simply is not true since other apps do it.
I am disappointed that you gave up so quickly. Sometimes it takes more research than a week to find a solution. Please try again
Bruno Bernardino
Thanks Tony Mann. Unfortunately that would not allow you to use the integration in the main (web) app, which isn't something we're considering at the moment.
Bruno Bernardino
Thans Larry Mccutchan. All those apps aren't web-first like Sunsama, I'm afraid.
Chris McConnell
Alice Fritz they figured it out. Can’t be impossible
Tony Mann
Bruno Bernardino even if the mobile app is a wrapper around the web app, a native iOS bridge is fairly easy to do. No one expects Reminders integration in a web app, and iOS users know they will have to use the mobile app for this. I understand that you don't like the idea of the mobile and web apps being out of parity, but this is one case where it is so insanely worth it in order to draw in more people from the Apple ecosystem.
Rishabh Kanwar
Bruno Bernardino I am not sure how but they TickTick app leverages Apple reminders to add tasks directly into the system. The way it works is that as soon as I add a task in Apple Reminders, it first imports the reminder as a ‘task’ on TickTick and then deletes the ‘Reminder’ from Apple Reminders. The tutorial is present on their YT channel. Hope this helps!
Larry Mccutchan
I understand that and you made it clear from your prior posts that it is a web-first product. However, it is not impossible. Create software does the integration and either make it part of your desktop app or a small standalone app.
The point is that it IS POSSIBLE; however, you are CHOOSING not to do it. That is different than IMPOSSIBLE. Please do not insult our intelligence this way.
Arman Abedini
Bruno Bernardino I use Microsoft Exchange with iOS reminders. Tasks sync with my Microsoft todo. I also have a zapier connected to my Microsoft Todo that lets me do whatever I want with Apple reminders.
Phil Bryant
Bruno Bernardino just use EventKit in your native apps because any user wanting Reminders integration will have an Apple device. Users w/o an Apple device won't need Reminders integration, so it won't matter if the Reminders integration isn't configureable in your web interface.
Chad Lawson
Bruno Bernardino, I'm afraid I have to agree with the consensus here. There are plenty of apps/services (including Apple Shortcuts) that get at this data through things including EventKit.
If the blocking issue really is that it's because you are a "web-first" app like you mention, then it's time for you to evolve. You are charging way too much money and calling yourself a premium service to remain a web app at your core. You need to move to native apps now.
I first tried Sunsama a couple years ago, but I found it too lacking in features and integrations to justify the price. But I've been watching a number of the features that I either requested or upvoted become implemented, and would have considered giving it a try again.
But this is a showstopper. And it's too integral to the Apple platform to be ignored by a premium app.
Ashutosh Priyadarshy
Thanks to everyone in the community for chiming in so passionately about this. I tend to agree with all of you, we've been a bit hasty and overzealous in saying this is currently impossible. I'd like to recant that statement, on behalf of my colleague, and provide a bit more nuanced response here.
Initially, we expected that building this integration could work like all our other integrations with task tools, query some web api, display stuff in Sunsama and make sure it all works in all your Sunsama instances (web, desktop, mobile). We learned this week that Apple has stopped using the web API for their reminders and the only way to get access to it is via Native on-device API (EventKit as many of you know).
This means, an integration here isn't impossible but it will look different than some of our other integrations. For example, if you opened Sunsama on an OS X desktop app, we could let you browse and import your reminders but not if you do it from your browser. Initially, we considered this a game-breaker and a reason to not pursue this integration further. But after more thinking, I really resonate with what Phil Bryant said - "just use EventKit in your native apps because any user wanting Reminders integration will have an Apple device. Users w/o an Apple device won't need Reminders integration, so it won't matter if the Reminders integration isn't configureable in your web interface". In other words, if you can only use this integration when on an Apple Device, that should be fine.
We were a bit hasty in saying this is impossible and we won't build this. In fact, I'd started building a prototype of a fully native version of this integration yesterday before I saw the the passionate comments in this thread. I'm going to keep working on that for a few more days to get more clarity on what we need to do to support this.
Larry Mccutchan - I'm sorry about how this was communicated. We did not mean to insult your intelligence and I can see why you might have felt that way.
My apologies on us jumping the gun here.
Larry Mccutchan
Ashutosh Priyadarshy Thank you Ashutosh. I appreciate you addressing this and your discussion. I look forward to the future additions to the product.
Phil Bryant
Ashutosh Priyadarshy thaks for endorsing my position. im willing to help, build, test, and doc :)
Ian Watts
This is THE blocker in my using/paying for Sunsama. My entire to-do stack, personal and business, is in Apple Reminders, so I cannot effectively use Sunsama without it. Not only would would this improve the product for those already actively using Reminders, but I believe could be a good "default mode" for users who may be looking for a productivity app. At times I used the Sunsama tasks but it just wasn't as nice.
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