iOS Email Apps, Ranked

I have an iPhone and I use it a lot. To find out the best iOS 8 email app for my needs I built a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet ranks 9 email apps, with 29 columns of features. I weight each column according to importance to me, and the resulting "STATISTIC" shows me which fitness tracker is the one I should purchase.

The 9 apps:
Accompli
Inbox by Gmail
Boxer
Cloud Magic
Gmail
Dispatch
Mailbox
Mail.app
Inky Mail

Did not rank (among others):
Molto
Evomail+
Triage
SquareOne
Seed Mail
Mail Pilot
Yahoo Mail
Hop
myMail
Inbox Cube


Here are the tracked features ordered by importance to me
iPhone compatibility (duh)
Gmail support
Swipe actions
Defer emails
Android app
Web app
Viewing of Gmail folders
OmniFocus integration
Instapaper integration
Quote replies
View attachments in one view
Dropbox integration
Google Apps support
Exchange support
Outlook support
Calendar integration
Calendar Availability
TextExpander Touch integration
Focused inbox
Google Drive integration
Box integration
OneDrive integration
iCloud Drive integration
Predictive Search
Important/Most used people
Evernote integration
Todoist integration
Asana integration
CloudDrive integration

I didn't consider price of the app

Here's what my STATISTIC produced:

1. Accompli, 325
2. Inbox by Gmail, 250
3. Boxer, 245
4. Cloud Magic, 230
5. Gmail, 225
6. Dispatch, 210
7. Mailbox, 190
8. Mail.app, 165
9. Inky Mail, 155

Winner: Accompli.  Accompli has many of the "basic" features of the slick email apps of today, and has some features that no other email app has: Integrated calendar, scheduling based off availability, viewing attachments, etc.

Tasks and To-Do Lists

After a lot of tinkering and switching over the years, here's where I'm at:

Clear
My main task/to-do manager is Clear. Clear is an iOS and OS X app. It's extremely simple, with no deadlines or dates, and no ranking system. The only way it manages priority is by order. That's it. If something needs to be done before something else, simply drag it higher on the list.

Clear is gesture based, with simple gestures on the touchscreen (or with the mouse) to complete tasks, delete tasks, or add tasks.

Clear also has lists, enabling you to further organize work into lists. I choose to keep my lists very simple. I have three lists: Personal, Quizzing, and Shopping.  Any task that doesn't fall into the latter two buckets automatically goes into the first.

Because Clear has an OS X app as well, I can type lengthy tasks into that interface. Everything is synced through iCloud. You don't have a Clear account with Clear usernames or passwords or anything like that. Ultra simple.

Pros of Clear: Very simple (clear!), gesture based.

Cons of Clear:
It doesn't support recurring tasks, so if you have recurring tasks like paying bills or buying groceries, you have to enter them anew each time.

You can't import data into Clear. So let's say you have a long grocery list someone emailed you for a party, or a long packing list you composed on the computer; there's no easy way to get that data into Clear. You have to enter it manually.  Clear does support copy/paste, which can make things a tiny bit easier.

OneTask
I also use OneTask. OneTask is an OS X app. It's power lies in only displaying a single task (which should be your highest priority task). Often times we mistake activity for productivity.  OneTask helps you focus on a single tasks and follow it through until completion. Once you hit complete, the next task is displayed.  You have the ability to "snooze" tasks for a specified time interval.

Pros of OneTask: Helps you stay focused on a single task.

Cons of OneTask: There is no accompanying iOS app.

Other Programs
Beyond those two programs, I use many other programs for note taking, document creation and storage, etc.  I use Google Drive, Google Docs, Evernote for iOS, OS X and Chrome web app, Notes app on iOS, Tasks in Gmail and Reminders in iOS.  However, I've been increasingly limiting my usage of these sources for task management and prioritization.

I've completely discontinued using the Notes app in iOS and Reminders in iOS. I also dabbled with Wunderlist (mainly because it has apps for every platform), but I never really got going with it.

I store any notes in Evernote.  Evernote has powerful search functions, which allow me to find the data I'm looking for.  In the past I've stored recipes and other data to save in emails I've received. I've been getting rid of these emails and transferring the information to Evernote.

If any data falls into the Notes or Tasks category, I make sure I'm not storing it in Google Drive.

Summary:
I use Clear for 95% of my task work.  For the times when I need to be extra focused, I'll use OneTask.

Idea for Apple iOS, or any mobile operating system for that matter.

The ability to have dynamic screens: you could bring all applications with notifications to the forefront. You could bring the applications with the most usage time to the forefront. You could put data hogging applications on a secondary screen to keep data usage down. You could bring certain types of applications to the forefront automatically, based off what is happening to the user: if GPS detects travel, bring transit, mapping and directions apps to the forefront. If a user enters a mall, bring shopping apps to the forefront. If a user makes a phone call, bring social media apps to the forefront. The options are endless. The result is a user who spends less time accessing relevant applications.

Controlled, Randomized Trials

While this article feels a bit simplistic, Brooks hits on an important fact: current modeling, especially economic modeling, is able to tell us very little about the world we live in. As someone who majored in economics, this is something that became more and more apparent with every class I took. Each model requires many assumptions to be able to derive anything of value from them. As compared to the dynamic world, these models hold too many variables static (which is necessary to learn from the models in an academic sense-but limits the real-world applications). Brooks points to the many randomized trials that Capital One and Google run, and asserts that government should run them as well. Brooks admits the reasons government has not thus far. And while the lack of infrastructure is a huge reason, another big reason is the current incentive structure in government. Government officials that run real studies, ask the tough questions, and publicize the results often end up alienating large swaths of the populations, which often include their constituencies. In a political world where re-election is everything, avoiding anything that may polarize your voting base is a best practice.