iPhone app for shared to-do lists?

December 6, 2011 8:30 AM

Can you recommend an iPhone app for shared to-do lists? I don't mean "I make a list and send it to my spouse." I mean "List exists, and both my spouse and I can add to it and cross things off."
posted by HotToddy to Computers & Internet (24 answers total)

NoteMaster isn't technically a to-do list, but my spouse and I use it for our shopping list pretty efficiently. It synchs with Google Docs, too.
posted by Etrigan at 8:35 AM on December 6, 2011

Sorry for the drive-by answer (I'm at work) but Simplenote (them) (me talking about it) seems perfect for what you need.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 8:45 AM on December 6, 2011

My wife and I use Ta-da Lists for this.
posted by jaimev at 8:46 AM on December 6, 2011

Seconding Simplenote. We use it for this kind of thing all the time. Works great.
posted by jeffch at 8:46 AM on December 6, 2011

Cozi does this. I found them through Flylady. You can have your own, your spouse's, and a shared to-do list. It's marketed as a family organizer, and I'm pretty happy with it so far.
posted by sillymama at 8:47 AM on December 6, 2011

Listary uses the SimpleNote sync/share engine, so you can access the lists via simplenote (in plaintext) or Listary (a nice checkboxy format), and of course share them with other simplenote and/or listary users.
posted by misterbrandt at 8:58 AM on December 6, 2011

We hack a program called Grocery IQ for this since it's simple to use and has sharing built in and a lot of our stuff is "pick this up on your way here"
posted by jessamyn at 9:04 AM on December 6, 2011 [1 favorite]

We use Zenbe Lists for this. It's very, very simple (no nesting of tasks or lists, so we just make new lists for new projects). Sharing is easy, you can both look at it, add items, and check things off on mobile devices and through the web interface. The support sort of stinks, but it's so simple that it hardly ever breaks.
posted by peachfuzz at 9:24 AM on December 6, 2011

iOS 5 Reminders plus iCloud does this nicely. I created a Grocery Store list and shared it. It is synced between phones.
posted by cairnish at 9:30 AM on December 6, 2011 [3 favorites]

Wunderlist does this. My favorite free to-do list app.
posted by misskaz at 9:32 AM on December 6, 2011

We also use Zenbe Lists, mostly for grocery lists. It's a lifesaver since both of us don't always go to the grocery store/drug store.
posted by immlass at 9:34 AM on December 6, 2011

Workflowy is exactly—EXACTLY—what you want, and it's a web app so all you have to do is log-in; no app required.
posted by jeffamaphone at 10:11 AM on December 6, 2011

Not a to-do list, but Grocery Gadget is great for shared shopping lists. You have a group name and password. It's an app, but you can log into their website and add/remove stuff too. Plus, it scans bar codes, which is really cool.

Really, I see no reason why you couldn't put "pick up drycleaning" on your shopping list, but there would be no date associated with it.
posted by desjardins at 10:41 AM on December 6, 2011

Orchestra does exactly what you asked for, plus it's free!
posted by monkeys with typewriters at 10:51 AM on December 6, 2011

like cairnish said, a shared reminders list is perfect for this. Here's how to set it up: each phone has its own (primary) apple ID (for apps, photos, email, etc.), but add a secondary apple ID that both phones connect to. Any reminders created under that apple ID get synced together via iCloud.
posted by Chris4d at 11:08 AM on December 6, 2011

We do this for shopping lists: Create a shared folder in Dropbox. Get PlainText and make the shared DB folder its default location. Now you can both edit any files in there.
posted by monospace at 12:05 PM on December 6, 2011

Thirding cairnish. My wife and I use this for grocery and other shared lists. With the iPhone 4S this is even handier: "Siri, add milk to my shopping list" is all it takes.
posted by tkolstee at 12:20 PM on December 6, 2011

TeuxDeux is my favorite. A simple, easy to use to-do list divided by day, with a synced web interface and iPhone app ($2.99). Plus it literally crosses things off (as opposed to check or delete or whatever), which I enjoy. You and your husband could share a login and therefore both view / edit the list.
posted by geeky at 12:55 PM on December 6, 2011

If you're both on ios5 and have iCloud set up, you can do this in the built-in Reminders app. That's what my wife and I are using. For grocery lists, we use Grocery Gadget. For longer-form shared notes, I'd probably use Simplenote, but for now we don't need that.
posted by adamrice at 4:19 PM on December 6, 2011

I also use the iPhone Reminders app, but there is no need to set up a seperate apple ID. Cnet provides some easy to follow directions for sharing lists across devices.
posted by Nightman at 6:28 PM on December 6, 2011

Another vote here for GroceryIQ! It's very flexible for list-making of all sorts.
posted by JaneL at 6:40 PM on December 6, 2011

Response by poster: Thanks everyone. I can't favorite because I have no idea what will end up working, but I bought Zenbe and so far it seems to be pretty good for what we're trying to do. If we have problems with it, I'll just start working my way through all these suggestions!
posted by HotToddy at 1:47 PM on December 13, 2011

I'm coming back to add some information for future searchers. The Zenbe sync server has been down for about a week now, and while researching the problem, my husband found out that Facebook bought Zenbe (which has other services) in December 2010. As far as we can tell, they're not doing any maintenance or feature additions for Zenbe.

We're going to be checking out some of the other options in this thread ourselves now that Zenbe appears to be finished.
posted by immlass at 12:10 PM on December 28, 2011

How timely that this thread just popped back up. I was one of the original votes for Zenbe, but the week-long outage finally pushed us to find something new. We're now using Paperless and are super-happy with it; it's even more streamlined/easy to use than Zenbe was, and it's actively supported.
posted by peachfuzz at 2:18 PM on December 28, 2011