Chapter 17
Working with Reminders and Notifications
Get ready to . . .
Display Tasks as a List or by Date
Sync with Other Devices and Calendars
Mark as Complete or Delete a Reminder
Go to an App from Notification Center
With the arrival of iOS 5, the Reminders app and the Notification Center feature appeared, warming the hearts of those who need help remembering every detail of their lives.
Reminders is a kind of to do list that lets you create tasks and set reminders so you don’t forget them.
Notifications allows you to review all the things you should be aware of in one place, such as mail messages, text messages, calendar appointments, and alerts. You can also display weather and stock reports in the Notification Center.
In this chapter, you discover how to set up and view tasks in Reminders and how the new Notification Center can centralize all your alerts in one easy-to-find place.
Create a Task in Reminders
1. Creating a task in Reminders is pretty darn simple. Tap Reminders on the Home screen.
2. In the screen that appears (see Figure 17-1) tap the plus sign to add a task. The onscreen keyboard appears.
Figure 17-1
3. Enter a task name or description using the onscreen keyboard and tap the Return button. The new task is added to the Reminders list.
You can’t add details about a task when you enter it, only a descriptive name. To add details about timing and so forth, see the next task.
Edit Task Details
1. Tap a task to open the Details dialog. To see all the available options, tap Show More to display the choices shown in Figure 17-2. (Note that I deal with reminder settings in the following task.)
2. Tap Priority, choose None, Low, Medium, or High from the choices that appear, and then tap Done.
3. Tap List and then, from the options displayed (see Figure 17-3), choose My Calendar or Reminders to choose whether to display the task in the Calendar or Reminder app; then tap Done.
Figure 17-2
Figure 17-3
4. Tap Notes and then, using the onscreen keyboard, enter a note about the task.
With this version of the app, priority settings don’t do much: They don’t set a flag of any kind on a task in a list, nor do they reorder tasks to show priority tasks first. You can only see the priority of a task by displaying its details.
Schedule a Reminder
1. One of the major features of Reminders is to remind you of upcoming tasks. To set a reminder, tap a task.
2. In the dialog that appears tap Remind Me and in the dialog that appears, tap the On/Off field for the On a Day field to turn it on.
3. Tap the date field to display the settings shown in Figure 17-4.
Figure 17-4
4. Tap and flick the day, hour, and minutes fields to scroll to the date and time for the reminder.
5. Tap Done to save the settings for the reminder.
If you want a task to repeat with associated reminders, tap the Repeat field, and from the dialog that appears tap Every Day, Week, 2 Weeks, Month, or Year (for those annual meetings or great holiday get-togethers with the gang). Tap Done twice to save the setting.
Display Tasks as a List or by Date
1. You can display various lists of reminders (these include Reminders, tasks that come from My Calendar, Completed tasks, and lists you create yourself, as explained later in this chapter), or display reminders by date alongside a panel display of monthly calendars, which is a great help in planning your schedule. Tap Reminders and then tap the List button. A list of reminders appears, as shown in Figure 17-5.
Figure 17-5
2. Tap the Date tab and you see the tasks for the current date and a set of calendars displayed, as shown in Figure 17-6.
You can scroll the monthly calendar display to show months in the past or future, and tap any date to show its tasks in the daily list on the right.
Figure 17-6
Create a List
1. You can create your own lists of tasks to help you keep different parts of your life organized. Tap Reminders on the Home screen to open it.
2. Tap the List tab to display that view if it’s not already selected, and then tap the Edit button.
3. Tap Create New List (see Figure 17-7) and enter the name of the list using the onscreen keyboard, and then tap Done.
Figure 17-7
4. You return to the Edit dialog. Tap Done again to save the list. If you tap on the list in the List view now a new blank sheet appears on the right with that title. Tap the plus sign to add new tasks to the list (see Figure 17-8).
Figure 17-8
Sync with Other Devices and Calendars
Note that to make all these settings work you should set up your default Calendar in the Calendar settings, and set up your iCloud account under Accounts in the Mail, Contacts, Calendar settings.
1. To determine which tasks are brought over from other devices or calendars such as Outlook or iCal, tap the Settings button on the Home screen.
2. Tap iCloud and be sure that in the list that appears in the right pane, make sure that Reminders is set to On (see Figure 17-9).
Figure 17-9
3. Also make sure that Calendars is set to On in the right pane.
4. Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars and scroll down to the Reminders category.
5. Tap the Sync field and then choose how far back to sync Reminders (see Figure 17-10).
Figure 17-10
Mark as Complete or Delete a Reminder
1. You may want to mark a task as completed or just delete it entirely. With Reminders open, tap a task to display the Details dialog shown in Figure 17-11.
2. Tap Delete. In the confirming dialog, tap Delete again.
3. To mark a task as complete tap in the check box to the left of it in List view, and then tap the Completed category. The task moves to that category and is removed from the My Calendar category.
Figure 17-11
Set Notification Types
1. Notification Center is on by default, but there are some settings you can make to control what types of notifications are included in it. Tap Settings, and then tap Notifications.
2. In the settings that appear (see Figure 17-12), note that there is a list of items included in Notification Center and a list of items not included. For example, Messages and Reminders may be included, but alerts in game apps may not.
3. Tap any item, and in the settings that appear (see Figure 17-13) tap the On/Off button to have that item included or excluded from Notification Center.
Figure 17-12
4. Tap on an Alert Style to have no alert, a banner across the top of the screen, or a boxed alert appear. If you choose Banner it will appear and then disappear automatically. If you choose Alert you have to take an action to dismiss the alert when it appears.
5. Badge App Icons is a feature that places a red circle and number on icons on your Home screens representing alerts associated with those apps. To turn this feature off, Tap the On/Off button for Badge App Icon.
6. If you want to be able to view alerts when the Lock Screen is displayed, turn on the View in Lock Screen setting. When you’ve finished making settings for an individual app, tap the Notifications button to go back to the Notifications settings.
Figure 17-13
View Notification Center
1. Once you’ve made settings for what should appear in Notification Center, you’ll regularly want to take a look at those alerts and reminders. From any screen, tap the black status bar on top and drag down to display Notification Center (see Figure 17-14).
2. Note that items are divided into lists by type, for example Reminders, Mail, Calendar, and so on.
3. To close Notification Center tap the three lines in the bottom center of the center and drag up towards the status bar.
To determine what is displayed in Notification Center, see the previous task.
Figure 17-14
Go to an App from Notification Center
1. You can easily jump from Notification Center to any app that caused an alert or reminder to be displayed. Tap the status bar and drag down to display Notification Center.
2. Tap any item; it opens in its originating app. If you’ve tapped on a message such as an e-mail, you can then reply to the message using the procedure described in Chapter 6.
Clear Notifications
1. To get rid of old notifications for an app, tap the status bar and drag down to display Notification Center.
2. Tap the pale gray X to the right of a category of notifications, such as Mail. The button changes to read Clear (see Figure 17-15).
Figure 17-15
3. Tap the Clear button and all items for that category are removed.
If you change your mind about clearing all items in a group after you tap the Clear button, just close Notification Center.