project planner
The signal here is competition saturation, not search demand. You decide; we lay out the evidence.
Demand read
two models, independent (a read, not a measurement)
Two AI reads (Opus and Codex). A judgment, not measured demand. When they split, that is how uncertain it is.
How crowded is it
saturation from top-app review concentration
A dominant app with 16 reviews owns this space. Avoid a head-on fight, find a narrow gap.
Who is already here
top competitor apps (by search relevance)
| App | Rating | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Project Planner: MilestonesYassine Zeriouh | 4.94 | 16 |
| Google Tasks: Get Things DoneGoogle LLC | 4.8 | 105,408 |
| Microsoft PlannerMicrosoft Corporation | 4.63 | 13,104 |
| Notion: Notes, Tasks, AINotion Labs, Incorporated | 4.78 | 89,830 |
| Trello: Daily Task TrackerTrello, Inc. | 4.34 | 6,933 |
| DIY Project PlannerRafael Mirza | 5 | 1 |
| Daily Planner & To Do Listjinal alagiya | 4.77 | 10,430 |
| monday.com - AI Work Platformmonday.com Ltd. | 4.82 | 47,448 |
What reviews complain about
from 90 competitor reviews
- “Why would Google of all companies create an app with no search feature?!”
- “The only way to search is to do it in the Google calendar application.”
- “Missing a search function”
Ship search on day one, works across all lists and tasks instantly on device.
- “No ability to reorder the lists themselves???”
- “I wish I could re-order the lists from left to right”
- “having to scroll horizontally through them is significantly slower and more cumbersome”
- “I cannot be all alone in wanting to sort the task lists I create in alphanumeric order”
Drag-to-reorder lists, alphanumeric and manual sort, and a sidebar or sheet for jumping between many lists fast.
- “Years later still no red badges telling you how many tasks are due or overdue.”
- “The Widget is borderline useless especially the square one”
- “I would give 5 stars if you can make it where google tasks is native to Siri”
- “"Do the laundry at 6 PM on Monday" will literally just write that out instead of adding those times”
App badge counts, a solid large widget showing the full day list, Siri shortcuts, and natural language date parsing at entry.
- “repeating task... has not once sent a notification for me to do that task”
- “Recurring doesn't work the way it should. It eventually stops pushing a reminder”
- “can't use recurrence for "gaps" (e.g. "mow every 7 day", which is based on completion”
Completion-based recurrence (restart the clock on done) and notifications that actually fire, including after restarts.
- “Needs to be able to share tasks with other accounts.”
- “Can't share it”
- “No shared home grocery lists no project management in your team”
Shared lists via iCloud or simple invite links for families and small teams.
- “Now I'm sitting like an idiot tapping the... middle of the ipad screen where the button was”
- “The app keeps crashing without any warnings”
- “New update not saving tasks”
Stability plus a stable UI: keep controls where users learn them, test before shipping layout changes.
Can a solo dev build it
difficulty and risk, broken down
A local-first SwiftUI app with CloudKit sync is doable solo in about a month for the MVP. The hard parts users complain about (recurrence reliability, widgets, Siri) are all solvable with on-device Apple frameworks, no server. The real problem is visibility: you are competing against free apps from Google, Microsoft, and Notion on a keyword where indie entries barely register.
If you build it
a one-page brief (a starting point, not the answer)
A fast iOS project and task planner with instant search, real badges, and recurrence that actually works.
iPhone power users with many lists (tasks, projects, household) who are frustrated by missing search, badge counts, and broken repeating reminders in free big-brand apps.
People with dozens of lists lose time scrolling horizontally, can't find tasks, miss overdue items because there are no badges, and get burned by recurrence bugs.
- ·Team collaboration and sharing infrastructure (server cost, crowded space)
- ·AI features
- ·Migration tooling for Google Tasks (API scope creep)
Single-user planner: lists, tasks with due times, search, badges, one home-screen widget, natural language date entry, CloudKit sync across iPhone and iPad.
Free with limited lists, one-time unlock or simple subscription for unlimited lists and widgets. Keep a free tier since every incumbent is free.
Honest warning
the biggest trap of this opportunity
The top-10 keyword results are free apps from Google, Microsoft, Notion and monday.com with 350k combined reviews, so an indie app ranking here gets almost no organic traffic unless ASO targets a longer-tail phrase.