One of the biggest frustrations of the original iPhone was the lack of a simple utility for making checklists. I want to make a list for a project, tick off each item when completed, and re-use the list when I have to do the same project another day. I don't want to prioritize the items on the list, or color-code them, or categorize them, or tag them, or make origami cranes out of them. I just want to make a checklist.

Zenbe Lists

The App Store offers at least a dozen list-making utilities. I like Zenbe Lists (iTunes link) the best.

Zenbe Lists lets you create multiple lists, easily add items to a list, check off items when done and -- well, that's pretty much it. You can also set due dates for items, and share and collaborate on your lists with other people, but I don't care about those things. I just want my checklists.

I mainly use a checklist for one thing: To keep track of what I need to pack when traveling. I make a list of everything I need for every overnight trip, and keep it, and refer to the same list every time I travel. When I switched from the Palm Treo 650 to the original iPhone a year ago, it drove me crazy that the original iPhone didn't support making checklists, while the much clumsier Palm device had the free HandyShopper (also available for PocketPC).

Zenbe Lists is supposed to sync wirelessly over the Internet to a really nice suite of Web-top productivity tools for e-mail, calendaring, address book, and, of course, to-do lists. You're supposed to be able to share lists with other people over the Internet, too. I tried once and wasn't able to get synching to work. I don't really care about synching lists, I just want them on my iPhone.

I like Zenbe Lists a lot, but I'd like to see a couple of improvements. I'd like to see it do less: Ditch the due dates on list items, just to streamline the interface even further. I'd like to see a button that lets the user automatically un-check all items on a list to ready it for re-use.

Maybe Zenbe could use Zenbe Lists to make a list of improvements to Zenbe Lists?

More free iPhone software:

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