Realmac Software's Clear for iPhone has been among the most popular to-do-list offerings since it entered the App Store more than a year-and-a-half ago. Clear for iOS 7, a new $3 universal app from Realmac, expands the franchise to the iPad, and—in keeping with its predecessor—does so beautifully. (Clear for iOS 7 is a completely new app, rather than an update to the older version.)
Although labeled as being "for iOS 7," and released on the same day as that new operating system, the app's iOS 7-oriented features are mostly aesthetic. For example, there's some use of parallax to add depth to what you see, as well as the capability to change text size using the iOS's new dynamic-text feature, and the capability to change the visual theme of the app. Tired of the red-to-yellow "heat map" spectrum that's defined Clear's visual identity from the beginning? As before, you have a number of other color themes at your disposal, from "graphite" to "whale" to "sunflowers."
Bigger is better
These UI tweaks are nice, but they're all kind of incremental. The biggest difference here is that Clear now supports the iPad, and the app really shines when it comes to using this new expanse. Instead of showing you only a single list of lists or tasks, as the older iPhone-only version did, on an iPad the new Clear splits the main view into two columns: On the left is your master list of lists (containing, for example, lists for personal, work, and home); on the right is the list of tasks for whichever list you select.
On the iPad, Clear now shows both your lists and the current list's items simultaneously.
This larger view helps you stay organized and gives you more context when viewing a list. (On the iPhone, Clear still displays only a single column—your lists or a list's contents—at a time, thanks to space limitations.) There's even an option to show each list's tasks below the list name.
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