reQall, it
If you’re the forgetful type, you should check out…uh…crap, what was it? Oh yeah, reQall, a free memory tool that helps you remember things better, and now optimized for iPhone and iPod touch. Just imagine, no more coming home and the power is off because you forgot to pay the bill. No more lonely hours stranded on the freeway after running out of gas. You’ll always have milk in the fridge and ink in the printer. reQall is a memory tool that works with mobile, web, email, sms, and instant messaging. It is ideal for shopping lists, task management, and just capturing ideas. This is not the kind of memory tool that will help you count cards in Vegas, so you can just forget that idea. And before we forget, let us tell you all about the great new iPhone interface for reQall.
reQall is best described as a memory aid, but it’s more than just another to-do list. reQall is actually designed to help you remember things better by helping your retrospective memory (remembering things from the past), and prospective memory (things you need to remember to do in the future). reQall is set up to capture all these things for you into a single repository, then automatically jog your memory about those items at just the right time. You can send items to reQall from your phone, email, sms, or instant message (AIM or Yahoo). Items sent by phone are converted from voice-to-text then stored in your reQall repository. In your account settings you can set reQall to jog your memory about items in your repository. First off, you set the frequency of the memory jog with a slider that goes from “never”, to “every two hours”. This gives you really nice control over how often you want to be reminded of things.
You can also set your preferred method for reQall to send you reminders. You can receive these by email, sms, or IM. For any items you sent by phone, the email reminder will contain the text version of the voice message, as well as an embedded sound file of your actual voice message. You can also recall items by phone by dialing a toll-free number that you’ll want to put on speed dial. In addition to the U.S. number, there are numbers available for users in Canada and the U.K. Your recall repository is also available as an RSS feed, and to-do items that have dates attached are saved in an iCal format that you can view in any calendar client that supports iCal.
reQall is working towards becoming a smart text processing tool that understands natural language commands. For now, there is a basic library of terms that you can include in your messages which tell reQall to handle your message in a special way. For instance, if you start your message with “buy”, reQall will add that item to your shopping list. Telling reQall a specific date will put that item on your to-do list for that day. It helps to read through the list of words reQall understands to you can help it quickly organize your items.
The iPhone interface for reQall is simple to use. In fact, we prefer the mobile Safari interface more than the desktop web browser. On our Apple devices, reQall was a breeze to tap into, finding and searching for items in our repository was quick. Even signing up for our free reQall account was a great experience on our iPhone because instead of filling out a web form, you simply call a phone number and sign up with voice recognition. reQall sends your password to you via SMS and off you go. iPod touch owners can sign up using the web form.
You can also send pictures to reQall for visual reminders. This is a great use for the iPhone’s camera which lets you capture items and quickly send them to reQall where you can retrieve them later or have reQall reminder you about them when it jogs your memory. Getting photos into reQall requires Picassa, the free photo management tool from Google. You actually send your photos from your iPhone to your Picassa web folder which then gets synced to your reQall account.
All items, including pictures, can be easily shared with other reQall users. This is great for sharing pictures, shopping lists, to-do lists, or even ideas. Account settings cannot be accessed with the iPhone or iPod touch, you’ll need to do that from a desktop browser. But once it’s set up, reQall works wonderfully for iPhone and iPod touch.
You can sign up for reQall now by dialing one of the toll-free numbers below, or by signing up on the reQall web site at www.reqall.com.
United States and Canada
1-888-9-REQALL (1-888-973-7255)
United Kingdom
0800-692-8780 or 020-7147-5700
