Ease of use

Is it instantly usable or is tuition needed?

Before we set off it’s worth pointing out that none of the apps here are particularly hard to use initially – you can certainly dive in and get going in minutes. However, you might find you need to follow a tutorial to master some of the more advanced features of the app.

Wunderlist is extremely simple to get to grips with – you can create task lists, put things in them and share them with others. Clear is also designed to be simple, just type anywhere to create items, drag to move them and then hit space or right-click to complete them and a clever touch is the ability to pinch on your Mac’s trackpad to close the current list. Things is more complex than a simple task list and collects tasks based on projects, so it’s not the easiest for the novice. 2Do is similar, with OmniFocus being the most complicated. But these latter apps are more complicated for good reason. Features such as tagging and the ability to save a bunch of tasks to a project aren’t for beginners, but they really set them apart from the other options here.