Carrot Is A To-Do List App With Feelings, So Don’t Upset Her, Okay? [Review]

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Carrot: one app, two personalities.
Carrot: one app, two personalities.

Meet Carrot, the getting things done app with an attitude. If you’re good and you actually do the things you add to its list, you’ll be rewarded. But if you don’t … actually, things get much more fun if you don’t.

Carrot has two personalities. The happy Carrot takes joy in seeing you succeed, and showers you with praise for completing tasks. The angry Carrot hates you simply because you exist, and only takes joy in showering you with insults and petty sideswipes. I’m not sure which personality I like more.

At its core, Carrot is a minimal to-do list for iOS. Swipe down to add a new item. Swipe right to remove it (and win points!). Swipe left to access the settings and options. That’s about it. There’s no iCloud sync, no list sharing or checkboxes or extras of any sort. You can’t even edit items you’ve created. It’s just a simple list with relationship issues.

Hey! Easy tiger!
Hey! Easy tiger!

It’s also a kind of a game. As you complete tasks, you get points. More points means virtual rewards, perhaps even an upgrade. (I’ve not been that efficient, yet so I can’t tell you what sort of upgrade it is.) If Carrot likes you, she’ll be generous. If you’ve annoyed her, she’ll be rude, even downright spiteful.

I earned a reward and she said I could have a kitten, even giving me a choice of names. After picking the name I liked, Carrot spitefully ignored me and named it “Sludge.” Thanks, Carrot.

If you want quick access to Carrot’s bad side, take the short route and repeatedly poke its blue eye. You’ll get a series of warnings before the app turns Bad for good. It’s fun.

Another nice touch lies in a couple of command-line style features. In the text entry box you can type “Carrot I’m bored,” and Carrot will add a ridiculous item to your list. Or you can type “Carrot reset” to, well, reset everything.

Boredom has its own perils.
Boredom has its own perils.

Used as your daily to-do list, Carrot is more limited than many of its rivals. It lacks features you find elsewhere, even limits you to a single list of tasks. If you’re someone who is already organized enough to keep your daily to-do list down to just half a dozen of the most important things, Carrot will suit you well.

But Carrot (priced at one dollar for now) is as much about the personality as it is about the list, and here it shines. It’s so much more interesting than Siri. The angry Carrot is fantastically nasty – motivation of a different sort to keep adding things to your list and to check them off when done. It turns out being insulted really encourages you to get stuff done. Who knew?

Source: App Store

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