Monday, January 28, 2008

reQall

Sometimes only locals will know where the best BBQ is or the most scenic trail can be found due to obscurity. A place called “Tiny Town” is such a place at Macworld. A collection of small booths that are more like four kiosks pinned up together at each corner to make a square at their backs, was a place where gems were strewed within. Through the week, SvenOnTech will shine the light on some of these jewels.

The first precious stone we found was reQall. Basically a To Do list, reQall is much more than just basic. With a great interface for both the regular web browser and for the iPhone browser, reQall allows you to put your productivity into over-drive. With multiple methods for getting the information on your list, you won’t be able to rely on laziness as an excuse for letting your lists go to the way side. Supporting web, IM (AOL now, Skype, Yahoo, and others soon,) email, iGoogle Gadget, and phone, reQall pretty much covers all ends of adding items to your list effortlessly. As to the last one on that list, phone, is not as in iPhone but as just a plain phone call. By dialing 1-888-973-7255 (in the US, Canada and the UK also have call-in numbers,) you can check your list or add to it. reQall’s awesome voice-to-text technology works amazingly well. Sunil Vemuri, Co-Founder and CPO of reQall, had me sign up with the service right there at Macworld and then add my first item to a list. In the noisy halls of Moscone, I said into my iPhone, “Go to Starbucks”. Within a few minutes, I received an SMS confirmation of my addition. It read: Go to Starbucks. I was impressed!

Vemuri ran me through the rest of the features of the service. My first question to him when he showed the iPhone interface was if I had to wait for my completed items to reload the list reflecting the changes. Reason is, I use Tada Lists which does this and when you’re relying on EDGE or EDGE-less (due to no signal) connections, it can take a long time to get back to your list. I tire of standing in the store with my super-freaky-cool iPhone with all its advancements only having to be stalled by the slow connection. Vemuri assured me that reQall downloads everything and does not require a call back to the Internet to update your list locally. Smooth sailing through the store now, folks!

reQall works quickly, easily, and efficiently. The only thing it lacks from my point of view is nested folders to allow for various lists. For example, the grocery list could consist of various stores such as Trader Joe’s for groceries, Costco for bulk, and Lowes for hardware needs. Having items from all these stores in one list makes things messy and, IMHO, unusable. Thankfully Vemuri took note of my suggestion and maybe we’ll see it in the final version.

That said, reQall is in beta and it should complete its testing by Valentine’s Day so all you guys can make a list for your honey and not forget to get your special someone that special something on that special day. Once out of beta, reQall hopes to have a paid for version and a free version. No details were given as they have not all been decided on at the time of the interview but the free version will have compelling features insured Vemuri.

Update: We wanted to print this in which we just received from Sunil Vemuri, which reads: “One point of clarification, in your article, “Vemuri assured me that reQall downloads everything and does not require a call back to the Internet to update your list locally” The ability to function in the face of slow or unavailable network is something we are working on, but will not have this functionality ready by the February release. I’m sorry if I said something that suggested otherwise.”

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