What is it?
I am going to be taking a closer look at COL Reminder, the remind-application for your Android Phone. This is a pretty simple application that essentially allows you to set up quick reminders/notes to yourself. These "reminders" set-off ringtones, LED flashes, vibrations, and pop-ups in order to notify you. Don't confuse this with a "to-do" list, though they share similar functions. Rather think of this as a very feature-filled stopwatch of sorts.
Features
From the Main Menu, COL gives you three different types of reminders: Miscellaneous, Parking Time, and Phone Call. While Parking Time and Phone Call are useful, I found myself using Miscellaneous for mostly everything.
I am going to break it down like this:
Miscellaneous: Everything (i.e. Pick up Milk, Mail Rent, Shave Cat)
Parking Time: Timer for your Paid Parking - literally a countdown to carry around.
Phone Call: Reminders for you to make phone calls to specific contacts and numbers.
Shot of Main Menu, from colreminder.chrisonline.at
Below your choices of reminders are the options where you can find Active Alarms (a list of all the reminders you currently have going) and the Settings Menu.
UI
Not much to say here - its clean, simple, and to the point. I am using clean in a very good way here. There are no useless buttons or animations. Think efficient.
Performance/Functionality
I felt that COL Reminder functioned perfectly outside of one weird quirk - the alarms/notifications do not go off the exact second you set them to. WHAT? Yes, for some reason I found that it took a couple of seconds before a notification when off. For example, I set COL to remind me to pick up bread at 5:56pm. When my clock hits 5:56 there was no notification, however before my clock hit 5:57 (within the minute) the notification went off - I'd estimate maybe 5-10 seconds in. Not sure what the problem is here, but if your that anal you need to be reminded at the VERY EXACT SECOND, then perhaps you should download a stopwatch app.
Conclusion
I think its a wonderfully simple and useful app. It utilizes Android's notification system, as well as giving you the option to add pop-up notifications as well. Its not the most exciting app/tool in the world, but if your like me you'll find yourself using it nearly everyday.
Pros:
Clean/Simple Interface
Uses the notification bar wonderfully
Very customizable in terms of notification settings
Cons:
Doesn't go off at the exact second you set it to
Could use more options for reminders (set for every monday, weekends, etc)
Rating
4 out 5 Stars
