todoPod is an Automator action that takes a note or to-do you have written, records it and then syncs it to an iPod, where it is available in the “Notes” section and in a VoiceNotes playlist.

Grocery lists, short motivational snippets, thoughts and tasks for the day, as well the more traditional “to-do” can now travel with you wherever you go. (If you have an iPod. I don’t, although recently I nearly cracked, so I couldn’t test this.)

todoPod is freeware and available from Thought Bottle Software’s web site .ipod, to-do, productivity, notes, reminders, voice recording, automator

When Leopard Mail was previewed last month, it provoked a lot of reaction. One of the things people broadly welcomed was the introduction of more “productivity features” like to-dos, notes and the integration of RSS feeds.

It looks like the Apple Mail Development Team is giving Mail some more grunt for getting things done, and might even muscle in on the territory currently occupied by MailTags .

A poster in the MailTags forum asked today,

With the promised tighter integration of Leopard’s new Mail and iCal, including managing ToDo’s directly from Mail, why should I invest in MailTags 2.x now? What more will MailTags be offering?

Good question. And MailTags developer Scott Morrison has produced a good answer. He has listed all the things that MailTags will continue to offer than Leopard Mail doesn’t (as far as anyone knows):

If this is too hard to read, you can see a full-sized version of the list on the MailTags forum .

From what I’ve seen, there’s no reason to think that MailTags will be redundant when Leopard Mail arrives.

It will continue to provide a comprehensive structure and process for my workflow through its projects, keywords and priorities, something that Leopard Mail cannot offer.

What do you think?mail.app, apple mail, mailtags, leopard mail, to-dos, notes, productivity

Apple Legal has been doing its best to take down screenshots that break its non-disclosure agreements, but I guess the sheer volume of posts almost guarantees that some will get through.

Spilled Cow has posted six screenshots of Leopard Mail (notes, making a to-do, a note with a to-do, a to-do list, adding an RSS feed and dispalying an RSS feed).

HardMac (Le Macbidouille) has more detailed shots of to-dos and to-do options.mail.app, apple mail, leopard mail, 10.5, to-dos, notes, rss feeds, screenshots, apple

After a week in which the blogosphere dissected the keynote from every angle, frantically hunted for new hidden features in Leopard and evaluated how much of it is really new and/or useful, it’s time for a round up of the “general view” on Leopard Mail.

HTML Templates suck

The new HTML templates were never going to be a big hit in the blogosphere. MacSlash writer acaben speaks for many :

…they’ve now made it EASIER to send out craptastic HTML email. Apparently, mail.app didn’t suck hard enough as it was, so they had to spend all of their engineering dollars making it as annoying as possible, instead of, you know, making it work well. WTF.

Pierre Igot at Betalogue has a similar view :

Real Mail users in the real world are just hoping to get decent performance and a proper interface for managing tens of thousands of archived emails. Instead, we get “30 professionally designed stationery templates.” Yet more crappy HTML email! Grrrrreat.

I share the same dislike of HTML in email, but I think it is time for bloggers to pause and take a collective deep breath. We are not like other people. Other people like HTML email a lot. Jim Puls attempts a defence of the new templates and HTML in email:

HTML e-mail exists so that you might be able to communicate with people better by more richly expressing yourself.

Productivity enhancements

Notes, to-dos and the inclusion of RSS feeds for extra information-processing focus were greeted more positively. Although these features are not new and are (partially) available to Mail users now through the work of third-party developers, Apple will present them in a more polished form. When Apple eats its children, it always makes a good job of the meal (remember Konfabulator? RIP).

Overall, restrained praise is the general tone. These things are welcome but not overwhelming.

Chris Clark at decaffeinated represents the tone of many blog posts I’ve read in the last week:

The system-wide ToDo server is a very cool idea, but everything else about the Mail preview perturbs me. Stationery? Great, more (no doubt standards-ignorant) HTML email. Thank god for hidden preferences that force plain text display by default. A notes mailbox is pretty cool, so long as it plays nice with IMAP servers (I worry that it won’t), and RSS is a gimme. Next.

Paul Thurrott seems conflicted . On the one hand he says the new features are welcome; on the other:

Apple’s Mail application (often called Mail.app in reference to its beginnings on the NeXT platform) is being updated with some truly lame features: Stationary, notes, to-do notes, and RSS. Ugh. These aren’t major features, and they’re certainly not worthy of the time Jobs gave them during the keynote.

Macworld presents an extended evaluation of Leopard Mail. It likes the new features but remains unimpressed in general:

New bells and whistles, such as Notes, To Dos, RSS support, and stationery templates, expand the program’s reach and make it more of a multitasking tool. However, if you’re using a third-party e-mail application because you need powerful management features not offered by Mail, these additions alone aren’t likely to change your mind.

mail.app, apple mail, leopard, views, HTML, to-dos, notes, preview, keynote, apple

You don’t have to wait until next year to get your hands on the new features in Mail 3.0. The third-party apps and plugins that may have inspired the new features are available now.

However odd and unsettling this year’s WWDC keynote was (Leander Kahney has some interesting thoughts ), it was good news for Mail.app fans.

Apple has spent some time and energy working on Mail. With the exception of templates, the other new features previewed by Steve Jobs will make it a better productivity tool.

With notes, to-dos and the ability to manage RSS feeds (See Apple’s new Leopard Mail web page for more), Mail 3.0 really will “help you to do more with your Mail” as Apple suggests.

Oddly, Apple’s press release rather oversold these advances. “Leopard’s Mail includes breakthrough new features that have never been seen before in a Mail application,” it pronounces.

Not true. And not smart either. Why the Apple PR machine didn’t adopt a more honest approach (“Leopard’s Mail takes some great ideas and makes them even better”), I don’t know. It’s as if Thunderbird, MailTags, Event Maker, Note to Self, or the stationery in Outlook Express and other mail clients never existed.

In any case, the good news is that you can take advantage of these new features now (if not always in quite the polished form Leopard promises).

To-dos (not system-wide) — MailTags
Templates (not HTML) — Mail Templates, Roll your own
Notes (not RTF) — Note to Self
RSS feeds (in your Inbox) — FeedMailer, rmail

I can’t make up my mind about the new HTML templates. My inner plain-texter revolts, but I can see how some people will find them tremendous fun.mail.app, productivity, apple mail, leopard, todos, iCal, notes, templates, RSS feeds, apple

Will Henderson has written a “micro-app” that lets you quickly email a note, to-do or reminder to yourself in Mail.app.

He got frustrated by iCal’s to-dos, which didn’t quite do what he wanted, as he explains:

For a while now, I’ve been sending myself todos via iCal, but that’s not good enough – it requires a net connection and it doesn’t cover many usage scenarios, i.e.
• I want a task that doesn’t have a particular due date
• I want a task that can be filed or tagged (using Mailtags , of course)
• I want searchable notes attached to my task

Despite a small bug (notes are sometimes sent to the Drafts folder not the Inbox), the app does a good job.

You can collect the notes or to-dos in a smart mailbox easily. A condition that matches “Yourself” as a recipient catches them all.

This may appeal to people who are interested in using Mail.app as a personal information manager or as a “Yojimbo substitute” as well as those who like Will want more flexible and taggable to-dos.

Note to Self is donation-ware and is available from Will’s web site .productivity, information manager, mail.app, apple mail, notes, to-dos, iCal, helpful apps

voiceNote is a clever service that allows you to add audio clips as notes to your Backpack pages.

It requires you to register your name, email address, the URL of your Backpack page and its email address on the voiceNote web site .

Then a quick call from your mobile/cell, work or home phone adds an audio note to your page:

This allows you to capture your killer thought on the move or in the car. By registering and sharing your voiceNote number, you can even use it as a voicemail service for friends or for work.

Currently the service is in beta and works for the cost of a local phone call in the following major US cities: Denver, CO, Washington, DC, Chicago, IL, New York, NY, Pittsburgh, PA, Houston, TX and Seattle, WA.

I thought San Francisco was the beating heart of all things Web 2.0. Surprising not to see it on the list.

The service is free.backpack, voice mail, cell, mobile, notes, audio, productivity