My family recently switched to iPhones. While I was able to use my usual streak-tracking app, the history did not sync as I had hoped. There may be a way to fix this, but the situation prompted me to look for alternatives, as I am always on the hunt for the best app available.
I would ideally like a web app and/or Mac app that syncs with my iPhone.
Not That Interesting
everyday
I found everyday to be too simple. I need features like timers and the ability to manually enter data. This app is too simplistic—essentially just a daily to-do streak tracker.
Structured Daily Planner
Structured was too… structured. I like having some scheduled tasks, but this just looked like a hyper-detailed calendar. I want to make sure I brush my teeth every day; I don’t want to schedule it at an exact time. My main interest is in my streaks and the history of keeping them alive. This app does not provide that data.
Strides
I just could not get past the UX of Strides. It looks as if a government entity made an app. Its boring and bland design would have been fine in 2010, but today it puts me to sleep.
Habitify
The macOS app was too basic. It was even simpler than my current app, and I didn’t see anything that made me consider changing.
Todoist
This is a pure to-do list. No streak tracking to be found.
Unique
Habitica
The official wildcard has entered the chat. This is the one mobile-only app that I allowed on this list. It’s the definition of “gamification,” a hot buzzword in the early 2010s that’s still finding a place in apps today. Habitica lets you treat your habits like an RPG: You can gain and lose HP and build a character that gains levels and skills.
I could see myself having used this ten years ago to get started, but at this point my habits are so ingrained that I don’t need gamification. Maybe if I had friends using it, I could help encourage them.
Very Similar to Timecap
Streaks ($6)
Grit ($25)
Awesome Habits ($23)
Do-It-All
TickTick
There is a lot going on in TickTick. It seems to have the features I want, plus calendar and to-do list tracking that I should probably be doing as well. It does not have a lifetime pro option and is $36 per year.
Can I Import My Old Streaks?
What’s the most important part of a streak? The history of it existing. If I start streaks in a new app and it says I have zero days of running when I really have over 3,000, I’m not too happy.
This is one of the main reasons I don’t want to use Habitica, as I feel my years of streaks would just be ignored.
Where Are the Integrations?
The thing that frustrated me was the lack of connections to other apps and services. Every day, I have to manually check off accomplishments that are already tracked in other apps. For example:
- Run 6+ Miles (Garmin, Strava, Apple Health)
- Weight & Body Fat (Wyze, Apple Health)
- Read (iOS Books)
- Meditation (Calm, Apple Health)
- Write in Blog (WordPress)
- Video Games (Xbox, Nintendo, PlayStation, etc.)
- Code (GitHub)
- 15k Steps (Garmin, Apple Health)
- Journal (Penzu)
- Food Tracking (Fatsecret -> Apple Health)
- Macro amounts (Fatsecret -> Apple Health)
- Teeth (Oral-B -> Apple Health)
- 7h Sleep (Garmin, Apple Health)
The only streaks outside of apps are my One Punch Man Workout, Shave, Intermittent Fasting, Sobriety, and Planking. I’m sure there’s an app that allows you to track workouts, but I don’t necessarily need to track that separately.
But as a new iPhone user, I was not aware of the robustness of Apple Health. It turns out that Streaks, Grit, and Awesome Habits all allow you to connect to your Apple Health data. TickTick has a few integrations with Apple Health and more with IFTTT, but this discovery narrowed my choice down to Streaks, Grit, and Awesome Habits.
The Winner
I will admit that I almost went with Streaks because it has an Apple Vision app. And even though I don’t own one, I would like to in the future. However, I felt that the UX and options on Streaks were too lacking. Awesome Habits and Grit are very similar applications, and ultimately I decided on Grit because it reminded me of Timecap and just felt more natural to me.
Now to manually import all my old data…
