I’ve become aware of this category of app and it strikes me that they could be really quite useful to my non standard, complicated family setup, in which me and my other half often miss each other day to day because of differing shifts and commitments. Strikes me that having a shared cloud space for to do lists, shopping lists and general plans and calendars seems like a great idea to get us all singing off the same hymn sheet. However, the only ones I’ve found seem to have a fairly hefty subscription system to pay for them, so it’s not a no brainer.

Does anyone here use either the titular app or a similar alternative? Do you find it helps, or is it a first world solution to something that’s not really that big a problem anyway? Any cheaper (free?) alternatives?

TIA, V8

Shared Google diary and drive space?

Another google calendar user here. We have a number of shared calendars for different things (work shifts, school holidays, etc) and people in the family. Different calendars are all colour coded which helps on quick overview. Works well for us on Android phones, tablets, chromebook etc, we are very much in he google/android eco-system.

We mainly just used shared Google Calendars. One each, one for the kids and one for “other”.
All viewable on our iPhones, iPad or any PC.

We also sometimes use shared To-Do lists (via the default Reminders app on iOS).
And we have a shared DropBox and Google Drive for any documents, spreadsheets etc.

Can I use that there Google stuff for shared shopping lists and the like? editable by all users?

iOS as above – calendars, lists, notes. OS X will share same Apple account.

Google Keep is handy for todo lists and quick notes etc, they can be shared.

Google keep is good for to do lists and shopping lists, they can be shared and licked off as they are put in the trolley. My wife can even add things when I am doing the shopping.

Google calendar for organising with a quick diary meeting every week.

All free, why pay. Big Trello user at work. It has advantages in many situations but probably not a fit for this one

Shopping: we just do the big weekly/fortnightly shops online in an evening and get it delivered when one of us will be home or in a morning before the school run. Lot easier than dragging two bored kids round a supermarket for hours.

There will definitely be a place for online shopping for us moving forward, but that Google Keep app looks really useful too, thank you. How do I share the space? Do I do it list by list, in the ‘collaborators’ option?

iOS / OS X shared calendar and group iMessages seem to work ok for us.

on most google “objects” these days you will see a share buttons (looks like a v on it’s side with two dots on the ends of the lines). On google keep you can create lists and notes and share with others. Sharers can see, add and edit notes. Keep now also integrates Reminders created there with Google Calendar.

You can create calendars in google, and enter events for those calendars (select from a drop down list of whose calendar on webpage, or “Events” on android). Each Stoner Jr has a “Calendar” that both their mother and I can see/edit/create events in. We also see each other’s calendars which minimises arguments about who gets to do stuff in the evening…first one in the diary wins!

A cheap 10″ android tablet attached to the fridge and you have a family control centre right there! 🙂

A single shared Google Calendar does most of this for us (we just stick initials at the start of something if it’s just for one person), with a few shared lists/to-dos in Wunderlist.

I looked into shared calendars a few years ago, and looked at pretty much every option there was. Crucially, we needed something platform-agnostic as we’ve a mix of PCs, iDevices, Androids and a Windows phone, as well as Enterprise concerns (Exchange and the corporate Google offering). Google Calendar turned out to be the glue that held everything together.

So, now my Google account has two calendars (plus the other gubbins that you tend to accrue like “UK Holidays”); my personal calendar and a Shared calendar. My personal one is largely work stuff, and syncs to Google from Exchange with a third party app called gSyncit. My OH has full access to the Shared calendar, granted to her own Gmail a/c. everything else Just Works, obviously it’s natively supported in Android and likewise it auto-syncs from my OH’s Apple things (though I’m not sure offhand how that was set up). For us, it’s perfect.

What I don’t have is a satisfactory shared notes system. I’ve tried loads and they all have their own quirks, weird sync issues and the like, though it’s a while since I last looked at it so am probably due a revisit. Open to suggestions.

Haven’t heard of ‘hubapp’, will take a look. Ta.

In the Hub reviews,

After only ONE month, we used up all the space in the free app. We were prompted to upgrade to the paid version. Didn’t love it enough to pay.

Hm.

AnyList is a good app for shared lists and is perfect for shopping lists. It’s free, with an upgrade option to un-tap the advanced features, but I’ve never felt the need.

Would like shared calendars but in our house the (paper) kitchen calendar still rules for family organisation.

Have a look at Trello

Would like shared calendars but in our house the (paper) kitchen calendar still rules for family organisation.

Old skool 😀

My mum recently bought us a “Family Calendar” thing – a giant paper year planner with bits for birthdays, stickers, etc to be proudly hung on the wall of the kitchen.

It’s still in the box.

She couldn’t understand why we didn’t use it.

The answer is simple: I spend almost all of my day NOT in my kitchen. I have all that information on my phone in my pocket and it auto-syncs with my wife + Facebook events, contacts birthdays etc without me spending hours transcribing it all to paper. And if someone asks me in the pub if I’m free next Saturday I don’t have to go home to my kitchen to find out 😀

^lol

Same with me, but I have to accept (for now) the double entry onto my phone. If we get rid of the paper calendar it’s one less stocking filler for my wife at Xmas 😆

Just walked past the kitchen calendar and must admit it is handy having it visible. Is there such a thing as an “always on” e-calendar that syncs to Google/iOS calendars? I know a cheap tablet could do it but it seems like there’s a (small) gap in the market for something here…

http://www.mycalou.com/?lang=en

someone with the same idea, but no launch product

Is there such a thing as an “always on” e-calendar that syncs to Google/iOS calendars?

O2 used to do a tablet-a-like that did that sort of thing. Joggler or some such.

Thus,

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/o2-joggler-/162103089133

They really need to develop some decent resolution colour ePaper at a reasonable cost before that takes off

(same argument I have about electronic Photo Frame – I don’t want a transmissive display burning away in the corner to display a photo – I want a reflective passive display that only uses power to change the image).

someone with the same idea, but no launch product

That’s exactly what I was thinking.

Another for shared Google calendars here. It was a battle getting my wife to move away from paper initially, but once she realised that the tiny computer she only uses as a phone could do such clever things, she quickly switched, which is good, because she’s the planner in our house.