A while ago I wrote about The Hit List – a clean, powerful GTD application for the Mac. Over a year passed since that posting so I’d love to give an updated about The Hit List and the development of that particular application.So, what happened in the last year? Well, not a lot:
THL is still beta
The Hit List lets you plan, forget, then act when the time is right. (source)
That’s what they write on their homepage, but obviously the time is not right yet – THL is still beta. Over year ago I wrote that the developer reads the forums and listens to his users…. this is not the case anymore – there are no frequent updates and the developer (Potion Factory seems to be a single-person company) does not respond to mails. The forums are full of complaints and issues….
THL for the iPhone is vaporware
All the developer released so far is a screenshot, that can be created in Photoshop or using Interface Builder in a few minutes… until now there is no sign of an real, existing iPhone application, something that is really needed for a fully-operational GTD system.
The competition….
Enough complaining about THL itself, what I really wanted to write about is why I think that THL is not going to survive with the current development model… in the last year the competition did actually develop and improve their products, there have been releases and they learned from their mistakes. For example my favorite iPhone GTD application “ToDo” had a few releases and improved the application over time. Toodledo also improved their Web interface and added quite a lot of features.
It is unrealistic to think that Potion Factory will release a working, reliable and proven iPhone application from the beginning… there will be bugs and flaws which have to be fixed after the release. No app is perfect when released.
Also the competition is really really strong and feature rich. For example 2do or even Toodledo‘s own iPhone app. Both are shiny, stable and actively maintained. On the desktop Omnifocus and Things are way ahead THL right now – THL was great a year ago, it is old fashioned today.
My recommendation
While THL for the Mac is still one of the best GTD apps out there (it’s focus on shortcuts is great!) I do not recommend it anymore. There does not seem to be any development and without an iPhone counterpart (or an open API so independent developers can fill that gap) it is not useable as GTD system. All sync options are hacks and do not work reliable (check the forums for details). Do not invest your money right now… but maybe next year?
2 comments
Admin comment by Mike · 18.03.2010 at 08:10
Well, even TUAW editors are now writing that they … plan to give up on the seemingly-abandoned The Hit List and pick up Things….
According to the post Things has an iPad version in the works, the same applies to Omnifocus…. does not look good for THL.
Mike · 03.04.2010 at 17:41
Now the iPad is out. All major and not-so-major GTD apps in the app-store have already submitted an iPad compatible version. THL? Not a word….