Mobile app

Aperio is also a mobile app for iOS and Android. It is built on the same core as the desktop app, so your calendars, task lists, accounts and synchronization work exactly the same way – and, like the desktop app, it was designed from the ground up to be fully usable with a screen reader (VoiceOver on iOS, TalkBack on Android).

This page covers what is specific to the mobile app. Everything about the features themselves – events, tasks, views, reminders, search, synchronization, contacts and colour labels – is described in the Tutorial and applies equally here.

Getting the app

The mobile app is currently in beta:

• iOS – distributed through TestFlight. You receive an invitation link and install it via Apple’s TestFlight app.
• Android – installed directly from a provided build.

Both are built from the same Rust core as the desktop app, so a calendar or task you create on your phone behaves identically to one created on the desktop.

Finding your way around

The app has a bottom tab bar with four tabs:

• Tasks – your task lists, grouped and collapsible, with the rich task editor.
• Calendar – the day, week, month, year and agenda views, plus calendar management.
• Contacts – your address books and contacts.
• Settings – accounts, synchronization, reminders, colour labels, logs and the general settings.

Editors (for a task, an event or a contact) open as full screens on top of the current tab. Each has a Save and a Cancel action; use the system Back gesture or the Cancel button to leave without saving.

Using a screen reader

The mobile app follows the same accessibility-first principles as the desktop app (see Accessibility for the shared concepts), adapted to the way VoiceOver and TalkBack work:

• One stop per item. Each task, event or contact is a single focus stop. Swipe left or right to move between items, headings and controls.
• Actions instead of shortcuts. Where the desktop uses keyboard shortcuts, the mobile app exposes custom actions on the focused item – complete or reopen a task, edit, delete, reschedule, change status or priority, move it, and so on:
  • With VoiceOver, swipe up or down with one finger to move through the available actions, then double-tap to run the selected one.
  • With TalkBack, open the actions menu (swipe up then right) and choose an action.
• Live announcements. Status changes are announced without moving the focus – “Task done”, “Event saved”, the synchronization result, due reminders – exactly as on the desktop.
• Group headings (e.g. a task list or a section) are collapsible buttons that announce whether they are expanded or collapsed.
• The catalogues – calendars, task lists, address books – give each entry a single focus stop: a switch that shows or hides it, carrying the name, the account and the colour. Managing it (or, for an address book, editing and deleting it) is an action on that same stop, so reading through twelve calendars is twelve swipes rather than thirty-six. The buttons stay visible for everyone else.
• Dates and times use the native pickers, so they read and behave the way you already know from other apps on your phone.

Mobile-specific settings

A few settings exist only on mobile, under Settings → General. All three are stored on this device only (they are not synchronized):

• Background sync. Lets the system wake the app to synchronize while it is in the background or closed, so a change made on another device – and any new reminders – arrive without you reopening the app. The operating system decides the exact timing (it is not immediate; on Android at least every 15 minutes, on iOS in system-chosen windows), so it is a best-effort catch-up. The app always does a full synchronization when you open it, so nothing is ever lost. You can see background rounds in the sync log, labelled Background. Default: on.
• App icon badge. Shows a number on the app icon for today’s open tasks plus the events still ahead today. Needs notification permission. Default: on.
• Haptic feedback. A short vibration when an external-data refresh starts and finishes. Default: on.

Reminders and notifications

Reminders are delivered as local notifications. On first use the app asks for notification permission – grant it so reminders (and the app icon badge) can appear. Reminder sounds, lead times and snooze work as described under Notifications.

Home-screen widget (iOS)

Up Next shows your next events and due tasks on the home screen. Add it the usual way: touch and hold the home screen, choose Add widget, find Aperio and pick a size. VoiceOver reads each row as one sentence – title, day, time – rather than as separate fragments you have to swipe between.

Widgets follow Aperio’s language, not the phone’s — so if you have set Aperio to German on an English phone, the widgets are German too. Clock format and date order stay the phone’s regional settings, the way every other clock on the home screen behaves.

The widget draws from a small snapshot the app keeps up to date, covering the next seven days. That snapshot is refreshed whenever the app runs and on each background sync round, so the widget stays current without draining the battery. Two states are deliberately worded differently:

• “Nothing planned.” – there genuinely is nothing in the next seven days.
• “No current data. Open Aperio.” – the widget has run past what it knows. Opening the app refreshes it.

Tasks can be ticked off straight from the widget: a task row is a checkbox – the whole row, not a separate button beside it. VoiceOver reads it as one item, ending with the checkbox and its state, so what the row is and what can be done with it arrive together in a single swipe. The row disappears as soon as you tick it.

A tap does exactly what a tap in the app does, including under the cycling check-off mode: there one tap moves a task from open to in progress, and the next one completes it. The widget does not decide that — it asks for a check-off and the app applies your setting. Which state a task is in is on the row itself: an empty circle for open, a half-filled one for in progress, and the word is spoken too, so neither cue stands alone.

The tick is recorded immediately and carried out by the app the next time it runs – on opening it, or on a background sync round. That is not a delay you have to manage: completing a task in Aperio cascades to parents and subtasks, advances a recurring series and queues a sync push, and a widget has neither the memory nor the access to do that work itself. Events have no button, and neither do future occurrences of a recurring task: completion belongs on the current one, which is what moves the series forward.

Calendars you have hidden on this device stay hidden in the widget too. Tasks come from all your lists, not only the ones currently selected in the task view – but never one assigned to somebody else. A task on a shared list that carries another person’s name and not yours is their work, and the widget leaves it out exactly as the calendar views do. Unassigned tasks, and ones shared with you among others, stay.

Lock-screen widgets (iOS)

Both widgets can go on the lock screen, under the clock: touch and hold it, choose Customise, then the area below the time.

Up Next – the same list as on the home screen, shortened to fit: three rows, each on a single line, and each a checkbox in the same way. So a task can be completed straight from the lock screen, without unlocking the phone or opening anything.

Next Up is the other one: a single line saying what is next and how long until it – “in 25 minutes”, and once it has started, “Running until 11:00”. It shows only items that have a clock time. All-day entries are left out on purpose: there is no moment to count down to, and a long one – a fortnight’s holiday, say – would otherwise answer “what is next” with “holiday” for the whole fortnight, straight through every appointment you still have to keep. When nothing timed is coming up it says “Nothing with a time.”, which is not the same claim as “nothing planned”.

It reads the same snapshot as the home-screen widget, so it needs no extra setup. VoiceOver reads it as one sentence, ending with whether the item is an event or a task – something neither the icon nor a colour can say on its own.

The countdown itself is not spoken as it ticks. A number that changes every second would interrupt continuously; the spoken form is the coarse one you hear when you focus the widget.

Home-screen widget (Android)

Up Next exists on Android too, on the home screen: touch and hold an empty spot, choose Widgets, find Aperio. It reads the same snapshot and shows the same rows, and a task row is likewise a checkbox — TalkBack announces it as one, with its state.

Android has no lock-screen widgets (they were dropped after Android 11), so the countdown widget has no Android counterpart. Everything else — hidden calendars, tasks from all lists, what a tap does under each check-off mode — behaves exactly as it does on iOS.