The majority of to-do list apps I review are designed to be used for business, productivity, or organizational purposes. However, I recently came across a to-do list app that’s a bit different in its goals. The app is called Done Not Done, and it was developed by Betaworks Como.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Done Not Done advertises itself as “the to do list of things you want to do, not the things you have to do.” Essentially, Done Not Done is a repository of all the books, movies, music, and other pop culture items that you want to experience in your lifetime.

Pros

• Never forget the name or a book or movie that your friend had recommended
• All content is organized by whether it is something you “Watch,” “Listen,” or “Read”
• Coming Soon: TV shows for “Watch”, “Eat” for restaurants, and “Play” for video games!
• Search for items, rate them, or get suggestions from within the app
• Attractive UI with approachable, modern design
• Has a complementary web app
• Follow your friends from Facebook and Twitter
• Easy to add notes to each title (a great way to note who recommended it to you!)

Cons

• You can only use a search bar to add new items to your “done” and “not done” lists: it would be awesome to be able to scan the barcode from a movie, book, or CD and input information that way!
• Search bar lacks autocorrect/predictive text ability: if you screw up the spelling, you will come up with zero results. This is particularly frustrating when searching for foreign films!
• Search can sometimes be a bit laggy
• Items on your “done” and “not done” lists are not sorted alphabetically, but rather by when you added them to the list

Discussion

Done Not Done is kind of like your Netflix queue: you can’t use this app to watch any of the movies on your list, but it does keep track of them, along with books and music. This app lets you search for items, rate the ones you love, or get suggestions from your friends who are also using Done Not Done.

The developers say that future iterations of the app will also let users track video games, TV shows, and even places that you want to eat at! (Though one wonders if the app will let you list just restaurants, or allow you to get specific about what menu items from those restaurants you particularly want to sample: I’m hoping for the latter, naturally.)

One the whole, I’m not terribly impressed with the search interface in Done Not Done. It’s serviceable, but it could be vastly improved. The search can be laggy (up to 20 seconds in some cases), plus there’s no autocorrect. If you’re a bad speller, this will make searching quite frustrating.

One thing this app desperately needs is a way to use your camera as a barcode scanner. This would make it easy to import your entire DVD collection to your “done” list, for example. It would also be great for when you’re browsing in a record store and you want to add an album to your list.

Conclusion and download link

If your wish that your Netflix queue also kept track of music and books that you wanted to check out, give Done Not Done a try. It’s one of the few apps out there that makes it truly easy to keep track of the art you want to experience in your lifetime.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 2013.03.15

Requires iPhone/iPad/iPod Touch, iOS version 6.0 or later

Download size: 2.0 MB

Done Not Done on Apple App Store