Wants and Needs by Pixolini is a very interesting app. It aims to help you organize your life by getting the things you want, need, and are thankful for put into perspective. Everyone has things they want but don’t need like a Zelda Majora’s Mask Limited Edition New 3DS XL. Having used the app for a few days, I’m really impressed.
The app has a very simple interface. It makes abundant use of the colour orange throughout and has nice typography (barring one huge misstep with titles). The main view has a graphical representation of your wants, needs, and thanks items. This can be swiped to switch from bar graph to donut chart or regular graph. There’s also a small filter icon that lets you adjust the timeframe for the visual. Your actual wants, needs, and thanks are below this visual with glyphs next to each category. The + on the top right lets you add items as expected and I really like the animation for the compose window. The app lets you attach photos as well. It feels like a crossover between Day One and Vesper to me in some places in terms of functionality. The weekly reminder is nice but I wish there was an option to add a daily reminder or something more frequent. The app uses a bounce animation when you switch between categories while viewing items. While this does feel nice on the phone at first, it gets old quite fast and is plain bad on the iPad.
Wants and Needs uses iCloud to sync data and also offers PDF exporting for individual categories. It has support for Touch ID as well. My biggest complaint with the app is the use of drop shadow in the navigation bar on top for the titles. It looks horrid. A few of the other colour choices in the app seem off like the blue number on the bottom right in an otherwise white and orange view. Wants and Needs also has a really nice Today Widget that displays the bar graph. I wish there was a way to quickly launch the app ready to add into a category right from the widget but it is read only as of now.
I really like the concept of Wants and Needs. Having something that makes you think and lets you categorize your wants, needs, and what are you thankful for is great. The app accomplishes what it sets out to do. Wants and Needs is available on the App Store as a universal app for $2.99. The price will go up to $4.99 after the launch sale ends.
