A few days ago WebIS released a minor update to Pocket Informant which allowed the calendar and task manager application to run on tablets with Android 3.1 Honeycomb. But to be honest, all you get is the smartphone interface blown up to fit on a much larger display.

Now WebIS CEO Alex Kac says testing is underway for a major update which really will be designed with tablets in mind. The update is scheduled for a public launch around the end of July, but you can see a few screenshots in the Pocket Informant for Android forums.

There’s a new multi-pane view which you can use to look at multiple views at the same time. For instance, you can see a month or week view on the right and a multi-month view on the left. There are also tabs on the right for flipping between calendar and task views.

Pocket Informant 2.0 for iPhone is also in the works.

WebIS has released an update for Pocket Informant for Android which adds support for tablets running Google Android 3.1 Honeycomb. Unlike the default Google Calendar app that comes with Android, Pocket Informant bundles a To Do list with your calendar, allowing you to sync your appointments with Google Calendar and your tasks with ToodleDo.

Pocket Informant also allows allows you to see your month-at-a-glance calendar in a split-screen view, with appointment details in the bottom and a full month calendar filling out the top of the screen.

Honestly, on a phone, Pocket Informant does a much better job of organizing my information than Google Calendar. But the tablet interface looks like a blown up version of the smartphone version while the tablet version of Google Calendar has actually been redesigned to show you more information at a glance on the larger display.

While I’m a big fan of Pocket Informant on my phone, I’m not sure I’d spend the $9.99 on the app for a tablet. Fortunately if you pay once you can install Pocket Informant on multiple devices, so if you have a phone and a tablet and you’re already a Pocket Informant user, there’s no reason not try the latest version on your Motorola XOOM or Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.

The basic purpose of the iPhone lock screen is to keep your device from turning on accidentally when it’s in your pocket. But that doesn’t mean that the only thing that matters on the screen is the “slide to unlock” switch at the bottom of the screen, as anyone who’s ever pulled their phone out of their pocket just to check the time can tell you.

While Apple doesn’t make it very easy to customize the lock screen, if you have a jailbroken iOS device you can install a nifty app called LockInfo which lets view Mail, Calendar, SMS, Phone, and other information on your lock screen. Just tap the power or Home button on your device to turn on the screen and you get an overview of your important information, no sliding required.

But what about tasks from a third party calendar/task app like Pocket Informant? No problem. While the developers of Pocket Informant aren’t officially supporting the project, a third party developer has developed a Pocket Informant plugin for LockInfo.

In order to use the widget, you’ll need a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch with Pocket Informant and LockInfo installed. Then you can download the “Pocket Informant Tasks Plugin for LockInfo Native” plugin from the Cydia store to see tasks from PI on your lock screen.

via Pocket Informant founder Alex Kac’s blog

Astrid is a To Do list or task manager app for Google Android. I’ve never really loved the user interface, but I’ve been using it almost as long as I’ve been using Android, because it’s one of the only free apps that supports synchronizing your tasks with the web-based Remember The Milk task service. Unfortunately, the developers pushed out a new version of the app today, along with a note that future versions would no longer support Remember The Milk sync.

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Astrid 3.5 does add beta support for synchronizing your tasks with Google Tasks, but Google Tasks is a pretty barebones task manager. You can also sync your data with Producteev.

In the meantime, existing Astrid/Remember The Milk users have a few options. You can either continue using the current version of Astrid while declining future updates, pay for a Remember The Milk Pro account at $25 per year so you can use the official RTM app for Android, or find another solution.

I’m thinking about switching to Toodledo for my task management anyway, since that’s the service Pocket Informant already syncs with, and I’m a big fan of Pocket Informant’s mobile task and calendar apps. But I really do like Remember The Milk, so I might just pony up the cash for a Pro account eventually.

Pocket Informant is a contact and calendar app which offers far more customization options than the default Android calendar (and there is no default task/to do list for Android). The app was originally designed for Windows Mobile, but there are now versions for BlackBerry, iOS, and Android as well.

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The Android app hit the Android Market tonight and while it’s pretty awesome, it also feels a little like a beta app. It takes a little while to populate the different calendar views with appointments, and there’s no Home Screen widget, which seems like it would be pretty useful. Still, it’s without a doubt the most powerful calendar app available for Android at the moment. It’s also the only calendar app for Android I’ve found which lets you change which Google Calender an appointment is linked to after yoube already created an appointment.

That said, Pocket Informant pulls in data from all of your Google Calendars or lets you choose which calendars to display. There are day, week, month, and agenda views, with several different ways to display data on the week view. You can decide which day starts the week, decide whether to show mini-text in the month view, which may be of limited use on a tiny smartphone display, but it’s an option that few other calendar apps offer.

You can also change the theme colors by changing the colors for working and non-working hours, weekends, important, overdue, or unimportant tasks, or private data.

There’s also a task manager which you can use to create and organize tasks. If you set deadlines for your tasks you can choose to have them show up in your calendar. You can also synchronize the tasks with online task service Toodledo.

You can find more details at the Pocket Informant forum.

Pocket Informant Beta is available as a free download from the Android Market. The beta expires on January 24th. Hopefully by then there will either be a new beta or a full version of the app available for purchase.

Pocket Informant is one of my all-time favorite apps for Windows Mobile. It’s a complete replacement for the default calendar, contacts, and tasks apps and it offers better tools for viewing your information at a glance and far more customization options. There’s also an iPhone version of Pocket Informant, which offers calendar and task management, but not contacts, as well as iPad and BlackBerry versions. Now the developers at WebIS are working on an Android version… and a public beta is expected to launch in the Android Market sometime this week.

The Android version of Pocket Informant will feature a number of detailed calendar views, allowing you to see day, agenda, week, or month-at-a-glance views in landscape or portrait mode. Pocket Informant does a much better job of providing information on one screen than the default Google Calendar app, but it will synchronize with Google Calendar.

Pocket Informant for Android also features a task manager, which you can synchronize with Toodledo.com.

You can also change the colors for priority tasks, overdue tasks, weekends, workdays, and other details. There are privacy settings that let you hide items marked personal, private, or confidential. And you can choose which day starts your week.

You can find more screenshots from the upcoming Pocket Informant Beta for Android at the Pocket Informant forums.

There’s no word on the final pricing for Pocket Informant for Android, but the full iPhone and BlackBerry versions run about $13, while the Windows Mobile app is about $20. There’s also a free Lite version for iPhone which only lets you synchronize 3 weeks worth of appointments.

Update: Pocket Informant Beta is now available as a free download from the Android Market.

Remember the Milk is a popular, web-based tool for managing tasks. You can use it to store reminders to take out the trash or pick up groceries, or just about any other task you’d like a reminder for. You can set due dates for tasks or sort tasks by tag, location, or other criteria.

The folks at Remember the Milk also offer a Pro service that lets you sync your task list to apps for Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, Android, and iPhone. A Pro account will set you back $25 per year. The mobile apps are all available as free downloads, but you need to pony up for a subscription if you want to keep using them after  a free trial period expires.

Or at least, that’s how it used to work. Today Remember the Milk launched a new version of its iPhone app which works without a Pro account. What’s the catch? You get a limited feature set. If you’re using the free version, you’ll only be able to synchronize your tasks once every 24 hours — and you’ll have to do it manually. Still, this is a great way to try the service before deciding if you’re going to use it enough to justify paying for a full year’s membership.

Pro users will continue to get unlimited auto-syncing, the ability to keep your tasks synced across multiple devices, and push notifications for reminders. You can either sign up for a Pro account at the Remember the Milk web site or make your purchase from within the iOS app.

The Blackberry, Windows Mobile, and Android apps still require Pro Accounts to function.

Remember the Milk for iOS is available as a free download from the App Store.

via Lifehacker

Pocket Informant is, hands down, one of my favorite mobile apps. The folks at WebIS have versions of this calendar/task/contact organizer for Windows Mobile, iPhone, and BlackBerry devices. Noticeably absent? An Android version. But not for much longer.

WebIS CEO Alex Kac says that the company will start beta testing Pocket Informant for Android in about two weeks.

This will just be an early beta test for now. It won’t be widely available to the public. And it won’t have all of the final features yet. But it will let WebIS do some bug testing so that the company can officially launch the app in a few months. Right now Kac says he’s hoping to have something available for the public by September or sooner.

You can check out some more early screenshots of the Pocket Informant task manager for Android at the WebIS forums.