A basic Personal Kanban on the iPhone or iPod Touch
You asked for it, and we listened. Today we are proud to announce the launch of the first Personal Kanban iPhone app, iKan.
When we set out to build it, we decided to focus on a few key things:
1. Small Screen Many Tasks - We wanted to make the best use of the screen real estate on the iPhone, so we built the app vertically.
2. KISS - We wanted the initial release to be extremely basic. In future updates we will respond to YOUR needs, and additional features will be based on YOUR input. So please keep us posted as to the direction you’d like to see iKan take. We already have a long list of upgrades in our pipeline, but are primarily interested in how you are actually using the app.
3. Use Your Data - Integration with other popular time- and backlog-management tools. In the first version, we have importation from Zen. (But we can only import your data). If you import a project from Zen, you will bring that project’s value stream with it.
4. Start with Basics then Build to Suit - Each iKan starts with an entry-level Personal Kanban value stream with Ready / Doing / Done sections. You can however, create your own column headings and set your own WIP limits.
In the coming weeks, we’ll have a series of short tutorial videos for iKan – so stay tuned!
Special thanks to Jeremy Lightsmith, Gary Bernhardt and Corey Ladas who were all vital in making iKan a reality.
Get your copy of iKan at the iTunes Store.
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Hello,
Will you make an iPad Version of iKan too?
Regards,
NM
I’m interested in trying iKan as I already use AgileZen and have an iPhone. But I’d be much more interested in it as an interface for Zen. Are there any plans to enable exporting changes back to the server? LMK
Hi Ashley,
I’m afraid that Zen’s API doesn’t let us write to their db. So at the moment, iKan can only read from Zen.
It’s more than a plan, it’s a dream.
Jim
Since there I haven’t found a more obvious place to provide feedback to the developer, hopefully this will be effective.
A nice start. I’ve found it useful.
A usability bugs:
I find it hard to tap the plus icon for the very top area. By default that’s backlog. Which is where I usually want to add them. My work around is to add them in one of the other areas, then drag them up into the top area.
I find that having both a Save and a Done button one the card to be a bit confusing. I vote for dropping the Done button.
Feature requests:
- I’d love to have the option of syncing to other kanban services. For example kanbantool has a $5/mo per user with unlimited projects which strikes me as a much better fit for personal kanban than the agile zen pricing structures. Granted it would probably be tough to support all of the growing number of online tools.
- some kind of file export, in OPML or other XML format
- ability to move cards between projects. Not something that’s likely to happen in a work project, but I think about doing it a fair amount.
- support for hierarchical projects or programs (in the Johanna Rothman sense)
- ability to automatically gather all the cards I say I’m working on across all the projects. Given the kanban goals of limiting WIP and making work visible, this would appear to me to support that strongly. Especially once you allow multiple projects or boards. One thought I had was to have them automatically show up in daily. Thinking about it in the moment, I’m not sure that’s the most coherent solution.
Good luck.
I look forward to updates.
Best,
Don
I’m wondering if future versions
How does one import from Agile Zen?
Thank you.
Only the name of the project ports, not the stories…
Thanks.
iKan News:
We are working on the next rev of iKan – this rev is, first and foremost, focusing on integration with LeanKit and other on-line kanban tools that will allow us to import and export data. The goal being to directly interact with you online kanban from iKan. I saw a preview Wednesday and it looks great.
(Unfortunately, AgileZen only allows us to import data, we can’t actually write anything back.)
@JK – strange, the cards in AgileZen do import for other users. Can you be a little more specific?
Dear Jim Benson,
When I plug in the API key and click import only the peoject name imports. It could be due to changes in the API last sat according to Mary at zen. if you think there is something else that may be the answer by all means let me know.
Regards,
Jason
Hi everyone,
As we can see, changes to Zen have broken the import feature. So we’re fixing that in the next one. Also coming soon are integrations with more platforms.
Dear Jim Benson,
I am eagerly awaiting the new rev.
Do you have an ETA?
BB version in the pipeline?
Besides Zen, which other apps will it integrate with? 2 way?
Thank you!
Jason
How is this different from using “tasks” in Outlook?
Jim:
Any chance your iPhone app could sync with Kanbantool great product? I just discovered them today, and man, I would love a quick input system like yours to sync my items to the site.
Thanks,
-policarpo
This looks interesting enough to tempt me away for a while from the more complex GTD based app I’ve been using.I have one obstacle though and that is export. I’m not a user of other online kanban products. Any chance of a really simple plain text dump to email just so I can backup every now and then?
Thanks
Matt
Will you be continuing development of iKan?
I was willing to pay $5 for the app because I assumed it did work with Agile Zen (in a meaningful definition of “work with”).
What future development is happening for iKan?