ACE-Reminder App
Tony Gentry
Virginia Commonwealth University

Transcription provided by: Caption First, Inc.

   >> TONY GENTRY: This is a Virginia Commonwealth University Autism Center of Excellence video log. Let’s talk about apps for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad that help you remember to do things. Reminder alarms on handheld devices can be powerful tools for people with cognitive challenges helping them plan their day, take control of their activities, manage their task, and stay aware of time, switching tasks as needed. Most importantly having a reminder alarm that you control allows you to avoid being nagged by everybody else that seems to know what you need to do and when you need to do it. 

   Many people have moved away from paper calendars to computer based calendars, iCal, Outlook, Google calendar for instance because these calendars allow the capability of sharing information across platforms and for a very important event you can include a reminder alarm however these products can be difficult for people with cognitive challenges to manage. By the same token, your basic every day cell phone has some kind of reminder alarm system attached to it that can be used by many people however often that requires many taps on the device. Not a very intuitive interface and can be difficult to program and manage.

   For all of these reasons, let’s look at three apps that make programming reminders easy and ready to use. For iPhone and iPod Touch users the clock app which comes free and installed on those devices is your go to device. Unfortunately, the clock app is not available for the iPad or for other tablets and cannot be bought from the app store. 

   The clock app is a clock that allows you to keep track of different time zones around the world but we are interested in the alarm feature which can be accessed by tapping the alarm icon at the bottom of the screen. This is an uncluttered interface designed not to be confusing. To create a reminder alarm simply tap the plus sign at the upper right hand side of the screen. This opens a menu that allows you to customize your reminder alarm in several ways. To type in reminder text tap label. The label menu opens with a keyboard that allows you to type in your reminder text. Tap done when you are done to go back to the main menu. 

   A feature of the clock app that many of my clients really like is the ability to add different sounds to different reminders. To do that, tap sound. This opens a scrollable list of sounds. You can tap them to see which ones you like. For instance, here is Marimba [Marimba music]. Here is bell tower [Bell tower sound]. Some of these messages are short. Some are long. Some are insistent. And some are gentle. 

   One of my favorites which would wake anyone up I think is simply the generic alarm reminder [Alarm sound]. The reason I like this, the alarm will continue to ring exactly like that until you get up and turn the device off. Some of the others stop on their own. That’s why I like alarm.

   Here are some other choices: Old car horn [Sound of old car horn], piano riff [Piano riff music], time passing [Music notes]. I think you get the picture. Lots of choices, lots of opportunities to customize your alarms any way you like. For our feed the dog reminder let’s choose bark. [Barking sound] Good boy. 

   You can set your reminder to repeat any day of the week by checking that day on the repeat menu. Of course, I hope to feed my dog every day of the week. My kids feed their gecko on the other hand every other day. These reminders show up in a list on the alarm app. These alarms will awake your device from sleep to remind you to do something or interrupt another app that you may be using. You can also use this app as a stopwatch. This is the stopwatch interface. And you can use the app as a timer for quizzes, tests, or cooking. The timer allows you to choose whatever sounds you like from your list as well. 

   So that’s clock but what happens if you don’t have an iPhone or an iPod Touch? Here’s a good app for other IOS devices. Due, $4.99 from the iTunes store. You’ve got a link there that takes you to an informational website for the Due, that’s D-U-E App. The settings menu allows you to choose different sounds as in the clock app. Due also tells you how long the sound will be so you can pick one that’s very insistent or one that’s very brief if you’re in a situation that requires that. Much like clock you add a reminder by tapping the plus sign at the upper right side of the screen and a menu opens that allows you to customize your reminder just as in clock. You can set countdown timers with different sounds and timing settings. Here are the ten-second nautical bells [Nautical bells sound]. So that’s D-U-E, Due, $5.00 at the App store. 

   Here’s another option not as expensive, just 99 cents called Tell Me Later also available at the iTunes store. Tell Me Later has a very simple interface but as an extra feature unlike that of clock or Due, very simple interface. For a new reminder just tap new reminder. A new menu opens with the keyboard that allows you to type in your reminder task and set the time when you want it to go off. Let’s start our homework at 5:00 today. Here’s the extra feature. With Tell Me Later you can have a local notification on your device or send the message by email or Twitter. As with the other apps, your reminders show up as a list on the Tell Me Later app. This app like the others will awake the device from sleep to remind you or interrupt another app that you may be using to remind you. 

   There you have it. We’ve looked at three versatile easy to use apps for Apple products that can help you to remember to do things, stay on task, and avoid being nagged. This is Tony Gentry from VCU’s Occupational Therapy Department and the Autism Center of Excellence. I hope that you’ll take the time to explore some of the other videos in our series looking at assistive technologies for cognition in the support of people with autism. Thank you.