[iOS] Donna is a personal assistant app that helps you manage your day

screen568x568Do you guys watch “Suits” on USA? It’s this awesome legal drama about a law firm in Manhattan. By far, the best character on the show is Donna, a feisty redheaded assistant who pulls a lot of strings behind the scenes. She’s always one step ahead of her boss, and makes sure that he always has what he needs before he knows he needs it. That’s why I think Donna is a great name for the intelligent personal assistant app from Incredible Labs.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Donna is a personal assistant app that scours your calendars, helps you plan when you need to leave to make your appointments, advises you about whether you need an umbrella, gives you directions, and gives you a list of attendees at the meetings you have scheduled. In short, Donna aims to provide a personal assistant level of experience, without the personal assistant.

Pros

  • Works with any calendar app you prefer to use
  • Also plays nice with Uber, if you need to call a private car
  • Smart enough to provide you with directions, weather conditions, and when you need to leave to make it there in time
  • Speech-to-text conversion
  • Customizes your directions based on how you plan to travel: car, public transit, biking, or walking

Cons

  • Only available in the US
  • This is to be expected, but some users may dislike having to grant access for Push notifications, and also allow for access to contacts and current location
  • App does its best to guess where you’ll be coming from to get to a meeting, but it doesn’t always get it right (but you can correct it with ease!)

Discussion

screen568x5682Nine times out of ten, my enjoyment of an app comes down to the design and the overall look of the interface. An app can have great functionality, but it it’s ugly, it’s hard to get into the habit of using it.

In the case of Donna, I really like the interface. It seems polished and professional, but there is also a good splash of color here and there that breaks up the look and reduces eye fatigue.

There’s not a lot that Donna can’t do for you. There’s directions, predictive alerts for travel and weather, integration with private car service, speech-to-text notetaking, conference call assistance, and more. If I could just get this app to order me lunch based on my past preferences, it would be perfect.

As someone who doesn’t have a staff, a personal assistant-type app is something that really appeals to me. Donna just feels like an app that’s got your back.

Conclusion and download link

I think Donna is a pretty solid app for managing your schedule and making sure you leave the office on time. The interface is great, the core functionality is solid, and the overall experience is just kind of fun. Honestly, the only way that I could love this app more is if they made a “Suits” version of the app that would talk to me in Donna’s voice from the show.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.2

Supported OS: Requires iOS 6.0 or later

Download size: 9.6 MB

Donna on Apple App Store

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