ReQall Review

By Chad

I forget things. A lot.

It’s sad, but true… just ask my wife: my short term memory holds about as much as information as an old school floppy disk (note to the kids out there: that’s not a lot).

There are certain times when my memory really shines, and I’ll pull out some obscure detail of an event months or even years ago that impresses not only my wife, but blows me away as well. Unfortunately, I have yet to unlock the pattern that triggers these sudden feats of recollective strength.

Until I crack the code, I’ve come to rely pretty heavily on ReQall, a service that has quickly become indispensable.

ReQall does what it’s endearingly misspelled name suggests: it helps you recall virtually anything you might be in danger of forgetting. The reason this service is so powerful is that it employs speech-to-text technology that lets you record a reminder using one of ReQall’s mobile applications for iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone. The reminder is then translated to text and added to your list based on various parameters.

More on that later.

Organizing Items With ReQall

ReQall has a simple, yet ingenious organization structure that classifies items into different groups such as To-Do’s, Notes, Shopping items and any custom categories you might want to create.

You can then view your tasks based on these criteria, in addition to time based lists, such as Today, Soon, Later, and Overdue.

This works really well, because it allows you to view items based on your current needs. Need your To-List for today? Just pull up the “Today” screen. Stopping at the store? Just hit the “Shopping” tab.

Another excellent feature enjoyed by Pro customers (an incredibly useful service for a mere $2.99 a month) is the addition of “Locations.”

When you first open a ReQall account, you get a brief trial period where you have access to this (and other) premium features. At first, you have two default locations: “Home” and “Work.”

Adding an item, either by text or voice (yes, it works with both) that ends with “at home,” or “at work,” will automatically assign the event to that location – and you can create whatever locations you want.

Here’s an example: I pick up my phone, hit record and say “Water the plants at home.”

ReQall uploads that audio file to their server, translates it to text and saves it as “Water the plants.” The note is tagged under the “Home” location so it will show up on that list if I need it.

ReQall also understands dates, times and scheduling – meaning I can easily remind myself to do something in the future such as “Call Mom tomorrow at 5PM” (will save itself as “Call Mom” with tomorrow’s date at 5 o’clock – so it won’t show up on today’s to-do list).

Recurring tasks are also easy. Simply type or say “Balance business checking account every Monday,” and the event will be created on a recurring basis.

Adding in a number of locations for different stores you frequent allows for automatically organized shopping lists – such as adding “Buy printer paper at Staples” or “Buy milk at Whole Foods.” The “Shopping” tab will display all of these items together, while the specific locations will break out the individual lists for you.

Add in GPS functionality that will give you an optional audio and pop up alert when you come into range of a saved location, and you’re set to remember pretty much anything.

Here And Now

The biggest area of improvement at the moment would have to be ReQall’s “Here and Now” feature. The name implies that it would produce a list of current items for your current location – unfortunately that’s not quite how it works.

According to ReQall support, the feature actually works more as a “Here OR Now” list – meaning it shows everything that can be done at the current time OR at the current location – meaning you’ll sometimes have something on the list that isn’t due for a couple of weeks, but it’s there because you’re at that location.

Fine tuning that feature into a genuine “Here AND Now” layout that showed today’s tasks for wherever you are would make this service an absolute powerhouse.

Fortunately, ReQall has a fairly responsive support staff (they use GetResponse for online support correspondence) and they’ve had a number of requests to update this feature. Fingers crossed!

In short, ReQall is extremely useful for organizing both personal and business reminders. It makes adding items to your current and future to-do and shopping lists extremely simple to do on the fly – and the web interface makes composing a complete list all at once extremely easy as well.