Notificant 1.0.2

13.05.2011
I've covered a number of Mac Gems aimed at helping you remember tasks, events, and appointments. But one thing they've all had in common is that they've been Gems--they remind you only when you're sitting in front of your Mac. If you've got multiple Macs, a select few of these programs can sync reminders between Macs, so you'll be reminded as long as you're working at one of them.

But thanks to iPads, iPhones, and iPod touch models, many of us spend a lot less time in front of our Macs than we used to. For others of us, having an iOS device simply means that we now have some sort of computing device with us for more of each day. (Which also means there's now a glut of that help you remember things.)

Thanks to these changes, my approach to reminders alternates between setting reminders on either my iPhone my Mac, based on which I think I'll be using at the time I want to be reminded; or setting reminders on both my Mac my iPhone, just to be sure I'm covered. But wouldn't it be great if you could set one reminder and get it on your devices? That's the idea behind (), a combination of a $5 Mac app, a $3 , and a Web service that lets you set a reminder once and have it appear on all your devices. It's also a useful tool for quickly sending URLs and other bits of text between devices.

Once you've installed the Notificant app on your Macs and iOS devices and signed up for a required Notificant account, you log in to that account from within each copy of the app. This one-time setup process allows Notificant to coordinate your reminders across all your devices.

By default, Notificant for Mac appears only in the menu bar, although you can choose to have it appear in the Dock, as well. Click the Notificant icon and choose New Notification--or press the customizable keyboard shortcut for creating a new notification--and you get a simple window for creating your reminder. Just enter a message of up to 160 characters and choose a time for the reminder to be "delivered." (If you don't check the Schedule box, Notificant will deliver the reminder immediately.)

But the standout feature of Notificant is that every device on which you've installed the Notificant client (and, of course, logged in to your account) is listed in the Devices section of the window; check the box next to each device on which you want your reminder to appear. Your e-mail address is also listed here; select it, and you'll also receive an e-mail reminder. (Unfortunately, the subject line of these e-mail reminders is simply "Notification," rather than a snippet of the reminder, and you can't currently add multiple e-mail addresses to your account. I'd love to be able to add my wife's address so I could send reminders or bits of text to both of us. Alternatively, it would be great if you could send, with permission, to another person's account.)