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The iPhone comes with a useful Reminders app that helps you keep track of your various daily responsibilities, but free app Later by developer Nick Walter might be of added help because it focuses on reminding you only about texts, tweets, and e-mails that you don’t want to forgot to send. The app feels half-baked at this point, but a future update might bring it all together.
Later provides a simple interface with four buttons at the top, and you can ignore the settings button unless you want to send the developer your thoughts. The other three let you set reminders for e-mails, texts, and tweets you want to send at a later time. Let’s say you think of a text you need to send to your friends, but it’s midnight and you don’t want to wake them. Later lets you schedule a time for the app to send you a reminder.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
You’ll get an alert on your lock screen if you phone is off at the set time. If you are using your phone at the set time, however, Later does not give you a banner alert; all you’ll get in the way of a reminder is a badge icon on Later’s app icon. And within the app itself, it provides a list of your reminders, which you can then swipe to delete.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
Later does not let you compose your text or e-mail; it lets you only choose the recipient(s). From the alert on your lock screen, however, the app takes you directly to the Messages or Mail app with your communication pre-addressed. It would be more helpful to be able to compose a text or e-mail at the same time you set the reminder. Even more helpful would be the ability to have Later send it at the scheduled time without you having to revisit it. To that end, the developer states in the app’s description, “Future updates coming with the ability to send your texts, tweets, and e-mails automatically.”
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
Using Later to schedule future tweets works better than texts and e-mails. For starters, the app recognizes the Twitter accounts that you are signed into on your phone. For another, it lets you compose your tweet when you set your reminder. And reminders arrive with a Post button, which means you are but a single tap away from sending a tweet when Later jogs your memory. Oddly, you aren’t given a character count when composing a tweet when you go to set a reminder, but when a reminder sends you back to the app to post the tweet, it lets you edit the tweet (and set a location), and it provides a character count.
The idea behind Later is a good one, and with a little more work to automate the process of scheduling future texts, e-mails, and tweets, the app could be a useful tool for managing your digital transmissions.
(Via TUAW)
