Asana review: a full-featured task manager for iOS devices

The home screen of new Asana iOS app lets users quickly check out new tasks and inbox items. Shown here on the iPhone 5.

An increasingly mobile workforce demands tools that don't require desktop access, so Asana's decision to offer people who use its versatile web-based task management service a full-featured iOS app is a smart move. (Asana says it's working on an Android option.)

Even better, the iOS version of Asana is, for the most part, elegantly executed. I tried Asana for iOS out on both an iPad and an iPhone. It looks more or less the same on either device, with appropriate adjustments for the smaller screen size of an iPhone.

While Asana had an iOS app in the iTunes app store before this, it was extremely limited in functionality, serving mostly as a viewer for content created in the desktop browser-based service. The new app does a lot more, allowing you to edit existing content and add new projects, tasks, comments, tags, attachments and more on the fly. Anything you do shows up practically instantly in the service, however you or your team members choose to access it.

One of a growing number of web-based services catering to the needs of workgroups (both small and large), Asana combines elements of project management, file storage, and communications. It offers several levels of organization, including workspaces (a way for users to separate, say, personal and business projects); projects, which typically involve multiple users and tasks; tasks; and subtasks.

You can assign tasks to team members (or yourself); give them due dates; and add attachments, tags, and/or comments. The mobile app launches with a home screen showing pending tasks and an inbox that's meant to eliminate the need to check e-mail for work done in Asana.

The quick-add screen in the new Asana iOS app (shown here on an iPhone) makes it easy to customize tasks with everything from assignees and due dates to tags and attachments.

You can click on a task to view it, and creating a new task is easy—you simply tap a plus sign on the corner of the screen. But what I really liked was the quick-add screen for editing details of a task: It had a dozen buttons covering everything from due dates and assignees to tags and attachments.

Having all the data and components of a task in one place can be very helpful. For example, to illustrate this review, I created screenshots on my iOS devices and then attached them to a Screenshots task within Asana, which I later opened (for editing) in the web-based version on my desktop computer.

Asana's new iOS app (shown here on the iPad) lets you attach documents and comments to tasks.

This was a lot easier than e-mailing them to myself, which is what I usually do. The only flaw was that all the screenshot attachments had the same name (image.png), so I had to open them to see what they were and then save them under different names.

Another nice editing feature lets you reorder tasks within a project (or subtasks within a task) by simply dragging and dropping them (much the way you can reorder a playlist). This comes in handy for managing meeting agendas: Any project (in this case, the meeting) participant can add an agenda item as a task, and the meeting organizer can reorder them, even at the last minute.

In the new Asana iOS app, you can reorder tasks in a project (such as the meeting agenda shown here on an iPad) by simply dragging and dropping them with your fingertip.

The one thing missing in the mobile app was the calendar you get on the desktop browser version. But if you've synced your Asana calendar to a third-party calendar such as Google calendar or Outlook, you can probably arrange to see it on your iOS device calendar. For example, I had already set up my iOS devices to sync with my Google calendar, so to see the Asana calendar I'd synced with Gcal I just had to go into Google's calendar settings for iPhone (www.google.com/calendar/iphoneselect) and toggle the Asana calendar to be on.

Note that you can't edit Asana calendar entries from within the iOS calendar—but again, changes made within Asana (either mobile or desktop) will show up practically instantly.

You can use Asana for all sorts of undertakings, from planning a sales campaign or family outing to tracking bugs, and the iOS app extends its usefulness to a whole universe of users who prefer to manage their business and professional lives on an iPhone or iPad. With a generous free version policy (up to 15 people in a workspace), Asana is worth a try to see if it can help streamline your collaboration and interaction with co-workers, friends, or even family members.

Contributing Editor Yardena (Denny) Arar is a San Francisco-based freelance writer, avid online shopper, media junkie, consummate foodie, and proud possessor of a private pilot's license.
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Kingston's MobileLite Wireless streams multimedia and charges mobile devices, too

Small, light, and versatile, Kingston's $70 MobileLite serves as a Wi-Fi multimedia streamer and as a reserve power source for your other mobile devices, such as your smartphone or tablet. The MobileLite has no storage of its own, but it provides a USB 2.0 port and an SDHC memory card slot so you can attach your own.

Using the MobileLite is easy: Turn it on, connect to the MobileLIte's Wi-Fi network, and use Kingston's Android or iOS app, or a DLNA client, to stream any media available on attached drives or SD cards. Kingston told me that the unit doesn't support DLNA, but it showed up as that kind of device in Windows Media Player and XBMC (open-source media player software). You may, of course, treat the MobileLite like any other network drive and access files that way, too.

The MobileLite will also connect to and pass through a Wi-Fi Internet connection. The unit continues to function when connected to your PC's USB port, although you can't access the attached storage directly via Windows Explorer unless you turn it off. Many devices turn off automatically when plugged into a USB port. I prefer having the choice.

The MobileLite will stream most common media formats (though not MKV in my hands-on testing), but you'll be limited by the platform you're using. An Android or iOS smartphone, for instance, won't have the large screen and speakers that a tablet running the same OS will, for instance; and streaming to a Windows PC or a Mac should be an even more enjoyable experience. Streaming 1080p video was smooth up to about 2 MBps, and battery life was just a tad shy of 4 hours. CrystalDiskMark rated a USB flash drive attached to the MobileLite at about 26 MBps in sequential reading (par for the course with USB 2.0).

Kingston's MobileLite is a great little Wi-Fi streamer for the price. It's far less expensive, if not quite as convenient, as competitors such as the Seagate Wireless Pro or the Corsair Voyager Air, which have internal hard drives. That it can also charge or run your cell phone or tablet in a pinch is gravy.

Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them. He studied music at Juilliard, and now he power-mods his car for kicks.
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Copy and Paste Instantly Between All Your Devices With ClipPick

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Sony Developing Firefox OS Devices, Aiming For 2014 Launch

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Select Android Devices To Get Sprint Push-To-Talk App

You may have purchased your first cell phone for its elemental function of being able to take phone calls, but is that the main reason you own one now? With text messaging, food delivery apps, and social networking right in the palm of your hand, today’s technology has made it wonderfully possible (debatable) to avoid talking to another person on your phone in real time. Now, Sprint has made it even easier to evade direct and lengthy communication with the revival of an old service, Direct Connect Now, in the form of a new push-to-talk app — in other words, they’re bringing back walkie-talkie chatting.

Sprint Direct Connect Now is slated to debut first on the Samsung Transform Ultra, and will be downloadable as an Android app. It will give users access to Sprint’s CDMA-based Direct Connect network to let them chirp at their family and friends — holding up to 20 conversations at once — even minus the all-but-defunct iDEN-compatible hardware of yore. (The iDEN network Sprint scooped up when it acquired Nextel is actually 2G technology, which means voice and data can’t be operated on it simultaneously.)

While the Samsung Transform Ultra is set to get push-to-talk first, Sprint may offer the feature on their higher-end Android phones soon afterward, since it’s entirely software-based. Who knows? The glory days of walkie talkies might just be making a comeback.

via The Verge

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M-Go Poised To Be Your Ultimate Entertainment App Across Devices

At SXSW, hugely popular production and media companies DreamWorks and Technicolor are previewing their yet-to-be-released M-Go TV app, touted as the only app you’ll need across all your entertainment devices. M-Go wants to wrangle your fragmented library of multimedia into a single platform to act as your one-stop shop of consolidated content. We hopped into the company’s fully decked out purple bus on our way to the Austin Convention Center, and this also served as M-Go’s demo time for the app.

Right now, M-Go is being exhibited in private beta mode, slated to launch with 10,000-plus video titles available for purchase on demand.

“The idea is to create a service that works to bring all your media into one place,” said M-Go’s Cory Schaeffler. “It can work on your Apple device through an HTML5 app, on your Android device, your smart TV, PC, and more. After all, your content is only as valuable as the amount of devices it’s stored on.”

Technicolor is working with major studios to join in on providing content for the app. Ultimately, it will integrate live TV, smart TV and VOD including the ability to search and get recommendations within the app. The service is also partnering with Samsung and Vizio, so TVs, Blu-Ray players, tablets and other products carrying these brands will have the app preloaded onto the hardware. Intel Ultrabooks will also ship with M-Go built in.

All in all, it’s an impressive offering that could substantially alter the current landscape of service providers. M-Go is set to launch sometime later in the year, but no definite date has been nailed down yet.

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Mobile World Congress 2012 Preview: Quad-Core Phones, Intel Medfield Devices, More

During the week of February 27th, the technology industry will gather in Barcelona for Mobile World Congress, phone and tablet makers’ annual answer to CES. In the halls of Fira Palace, leading handset makers including Nokia, Sony, Samsung,  HTC, and LG will be showcasing their latest wares, some of which won’t appear in North America for several months. At last year’s show, we had the opportunity to preview the Samsung Galaxy S II, which didn’t appear on our shores until the fall, and the HTC Flyer, which didn’t arrive until summer.

Here are some of the trends we expect to see at this year’s Mobile World Congress:

Quad-Core Tegra 3 Phones: We were disappointed not to see any Tegra 3-powered handsets at CES, but we’d be shocked if nobody unveils one at Mobile World Congress. We’ve already heard that LG could be unveiling a quad-core phone called the LG X3 at its Feburary 26th press event and that HTC may announce the rumored One X phone that day too.More Tegra 3 Tablets: At the moment, ASUS’s Eee Pad Transformer Prime is the only tablet powered by Nvidia’s quad-core Tegra 3 CPU. We expect at least one other tablet-maker to show off a quad-core slate at the show. ASUS is rumored to release a lower-end version of the Transformer called the Transformer Pad TF300T, that has Tegra 3 with a 1280 x 752 resolution screen. Intel Medfield Comes to the U.S.: Intel made a splash at CES when it showed off both the Lenovo K800, the first phone powered by Intel’s Medfield platform, and the Lenovo IdeaTab K2110, an Android tablet with Medfield. Neither of these devices is expected to come to the U.S. and Lenovo doesn’t even sell phones here. However, we expect to see some larger handset makers start demoing Medfield devices at the show. Though Motorola told us it has no major announcements at the show, Slashgear recently reported that the company could be unveiling a Medfield-powered Droid in Barcelona.Wireless Display Demos:  At CES, Texas Instruments showed off its OMAP 4 processor’s ability to stream videos and games wirelessly to a second display while Intel announced that its Medfield platform would support the same Wireless Display (WiDi) standard we’ve seen on Core i5 and higher notebooks for a couple of years now. We expect to see actual mobile devices, not just white box units, that stream wirelessly on a number of platforms. Perhaps, we’ll even see Nvidia or Qualcomm show off this ability.HTC Sense 4.0: HTC’s Sense UI is due for an upgrade and many observers expect Sense Version 4.0 to make an appearance at Mobile World Congress. Slashgear reports that the new Sense will have a homescreen that functions in landscape mode, an improved browser with reader and page saving modes, and built-in Dropbox support.   Windows 8 Tablets: With the consumer preview of Windows 8 due out on the third day of the show, we expect to see a slew of Windows 8 slates appear on the show floor either right after the event or right before. Most of these slates will probably be running Windows 8 for ARM so we’ll get a closer look at that version of the upcoming OS.Augmented Reality Everywhere: Augmented reality apps were a big theme at CES and an even bigger one at this year’s Toy Fair. We’ll undoubtedly see some interested AR software and appcessories, particularly for Android. Even the Mobile World Congress show itself is getting into the act, providing an augmented reality app overlays icons on top of buildings and exhibits throughout the convention center.Higher-than-HD Screens: With Apple’s iPad 3 expected to launch with a 2048 x 1536 screen, the resolution race is on. At CES, we saw a couple of tablets — the ASUS Eee Pad Transformer Prime TF700T and an unnamed Acer slate  with 1920 x 1200 displays. Expect to see more 1920 x 1200 or higher Android tablets unveiled at Mobile World Congress, along with a host of handsets sporting 1280 x 720 resolutions.Pen Proliferation: At last year’s Mobile World Congress, we saw the first Android tablet with an active stylus in the HTC Flyer. Since then, Samsung has brought pen support to phones with the Galaxy Note. Expect at least one other pen-based device from a major manufacturer to bow at this year’s show, perhaps the rumored Galaxy Note 10.1 tablet from Samsung.Even if we’re wrong about even half of these predictions, Mobile World Congress 2012 promises to be one of the most exciting mobile trade shows yet. Stay tuned for our full coverage of the show.

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Why Wait? 5 Devices That Run Android Ice Cream Sandwich Today

From its excellent interface to its myriad features, Google’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich is worlds ahead of its predecessors.Though many phones and tablets are due to for an ICS upgrade sometime in the far-flung future,  very few have the new operating system right now. Here’s a list of  the Android 4.0 devices available today.

The Galaxy Nexusr was not only the first device to come packed with Android Ice Cream Sandwich, it was the first device designed specifically for ICS.

Samsung and Google teamed to work on the 4.3-inch smartphone and debuted both at a joint press conference in October 2011. And despite some minor bugaboos we had with the phone, Google couldn't have asked for a better device to launch its newest operating system on.

Read Our Galaxy Nexus Review

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Don’t Call it a Business Phone. New Devices can be Divided for Work and Play

Storing corporate data on a user’s personal phone puts that information in the crosshairs of any malicious software the user may encounter through the web or apps. And with app stores—particularly the Android Market—serving as veritable playgrounds for spyware and viruses, the need to protect corporate data on employees’ phones has become more important than ever.

So far, organizations have turned to mobile device management solutions to clamp down on the spread of malware and potential data leaks. But this approach often requires employees to grant their company’s IT department complete access to their personal devices, something most privacy-conscious users find less than desirable. That’s where split-personality or dual-profile software solutions comes in. Offered by companies including Enterproid and VMware, these new solutions separate a user’s smartphone into two profiles: one for work life and one for personal life.

Here’s how the solutions generally work: When logged into your personal profile, you can use your smartphone just as you normally would, without worrying about whether someone from IT can see which apps you downloaded or websites you’ve visited. “It’s really helping with the privacy issue, because as an end user, I may not want IT to see everything I’ve downloaded onto my personal phone,” explained Stacy Crook, senior mobile enterprise research analyst with IDC market research. “It’s about a separation of the data.”

But it’s not just about privacy. The dual-profile approach creates a virtual barrier, ensuring that apps you download can’t interact with any important corporate data stored on your phone. These work profiles also give IT departments the control they need. Logging into your work profile also means you are automatically bound by the restrictions placed on your phone by IT, giving businesses the ability to lock down the app store, camera, and web browser. Log back into your personal profile, and you’ll have access to your phone’s features again.

Because the space is still in its infancy, there are only a few major players working on dual-profile solutions. Here’s a quick breakdown.

1. Enterproid

Although it was only founded in 2010, Enterproid recently teamed with AT&T to bring its Divide dual-profile solution to the carrier’s business users under the name Toggle. Toggle functions by creating a work profile on a user’s phone that can only be accessed via password. By default, you are automatically logged into your personal profile. Only after opening the Toggle app and entering your password can you access your work data. To help differentiate the two profiles, Enterproid has skinned the work side with Toggle-specific backgrounds and icons.

To get Toggle on your phone, you simply download it from the Android Market. Once it’s installed, your IT department connects your work profile to your company’s corporate server. From there, IT can let you download specific apps as well as updates for those apps to ensure you’re running the latest and most secure versions. The software gives IT the ability to wipe corporate information from an employee’s device and manage employee access to company resources.

Employees gain the ability to access their corporate e-mail, calendar, and other data. The software also features a set of native Android business apps. And because they run in your work profile, they are encrypted and compliant with your company’s use policies.

Enterproid CEO and co-founder Andrew Toy said his company jumped behind the dual-profile concept because “it enables companies to have what they want in terms of management and control and security. And on the personal profile, there is no effect whatsoever. The IT guys simply don’t have visibility in that area.”

According to IDC’s Crook, the Divide/Toggle solution is better suited for small and medium businesses because of its simplified method for dealing with BYOD. The one downside to Toggle, however, is that it only works on Android devices.

2.VMware MVP

Best known for its desktop virtualization software, VMware has teamed with Verizon Wireless to bring its Mobile Virtualization Platform to Verizon’s line of Android phones. The service puts a hypervisor on employees’ devices, providing access to a virtualized Android operating system. When logged into MVP, your company’s IT department can remotely manage and provision a corporate workspace on your Android device while leaving your standard Android operating system completely untouched.

“If I decide to go with the VMware/Verizon solution, I’m going to actually have two separate operating systems, one real and one virtual,” Crook said. Users can log into a virtual desktop where they can securely access corporate information. No information accessed through the virtual desktop can be saved or copied to a user’s Android profile either. All information is isolated from an employee’s personal profile.

While MVP and Enterproid offer similar services, they differ in how they are managed. “With AT&T it’s the same instance of the operating system that the data is operating on,” Crook explained. “With the Verizon solution, you are going to have a partition of operating systems. So you are going to have the base Android operating system where your personal information is going to sit and then you are going to have a virtual operating system where your corporate information is going to sit.”

Unlike Toggle, MVP is built into the kernel of a phone’s operating system. As a result, it will be limited to users who have phones with that kernel built in. But Verizon says it is already in contact with its Android OEM partners—including LG and Motorola—to have them include the software on their phones.

And while Toggle could work well for small and medium businesses, Crook told us that MVP is better optimized for an enterprise setting. That’s not to say it’s a better solution. But VMware already has the ear of the enterprise thanks to its other virtualization solutions.

3. BlackBerry Balance

RIM’s BlackBerry is synonymous with mobile enterprise network access. The company pioneered a solution for employees connecting to corporate data while away from the office. RIM is acutely aware of the BYOD trend’s growing momentum and has introduced its BlackBerry Balance service to meet that challenge. Like Toggle and MVP, the service separates an employee’s personal data from corporate data. But unlike those solutions, Balance doesn’t create separate work and personal profiles. Instead, Balance lives directly on a user’s smartphone and is accessible by IT through a standard BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

That, according to Crook, is a result of RIM’s decision to build the software directly into the BlackBerry BBX operating system. “It’s a micro-kernel architecture so there is all kinds of partitioning already going on in the OS that allows them to do the BlackBerry Balance model,” she explained.

With BlackBerry Balance, users are prevented from copying and pasting corporate information into their personal applications. IT can also remotely wipe business information from a user’s BlackBerry if he or she loses their phone or leaves the company.

Users also don’t have to open another program to access corporate data. If an action they are trying to perform isn’t permitted by IT, then they will simply see a blacked out box. For instance, if you try to copy something from your corporate e-mail to your personal e-mail, the copy command will be locked. But like VMware’s MVP solution and AT&T’s Toggle, BlackBerry Balance is limited to a set user base: BlackBerry owners.

If there is one drawback to this dual-profile approach, it’s that it limits IT departments’ access to employees’ devices, making it a poor fit for industries dealing with extremely sensitive material. Healthcare and financial companies, for example, may need to take complete control of an employee’s phone if it stores sensitive information.

So which of these solutions is best? Because the BYOD market is still new—and dual-profile services are even newer—a clear leader has yet to be established. There are also several other solution providers looking to make some noise in this space, including OK Labs and Red Bend Software. One thing is for certain, though. More and more employees will want to bring their smartphones into the workplace, and businesses can either prepare now, or be left out in the cold.

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