Looking for Things 3 on Android? Here's the calm alternative.

We make ProgressCove, so read this as a maker's comparison. And let's be fair up front: Things 3 has a genuinely lovely interface. It's clean, quiet, and calm to look at — a lot of care went into how it feels. If you're all-Apple and work alone, you may like it a great deal.

But you probably landed here by searching some version of "Things 3 for Android." So let's answer that first, and then talk honestly about what that clean interface is — and isn't.

There is no Things for Android — by design

Things is built exclusively for Apple platforms, and its developer has said Android and Windows aren't on the roadmap. That has two hard consequences. If you carry an Android phone, Things is simply unavailable to you. And if your household is mixed — one iPhone, one Galaxy, a laptop that isn't a Mac — Things can't be your shared system even if half the family loves it.

ProgressCove exists in exactly that gap: a calm, structured task app on Android, with a web app coming, built from day one for households rather than a single person.

Two kinds of minimalism

There are two things people call "minimalism," and they're worth telling apart.

One is a minimal interface: a clean screen that doesn't shout at you. That's a good thing, and Things has it. It's what we're going for too.

The other is minimal features: leaving things out and calling it elegance. Things is praised for being restrained, but a lot of that is just features it never built — no sharing, no Android, no web. A focused app is fine. But fewer features isn't automatically good design. It's a choice, and whether it feels elegant or limiting depends on whether the missing piece is one you needed. For a solo Apple user, none of it matters. For someone on Android, or sharing a list at home, that "restraint" is just a locked door.

We'd rather keep the interface simple and keep the features a real life and a shared household actually use.

And there's a bigger point. A to-do list is just your own text — tasks, notes, projects. It doesn't need any particular brand of phone to read it. Any task app can run in a browser, on any device; the web has done this for decades. So tying your tasks to one company's hardware isn't a technical need — it's a choice, and your list is what gets locked in. We think a web app you can open from any device isn't a feature to brag about. It's just how a task app should work.

Our loyalty is to the people using the app, not to a platform. If a new kind of device shows up tomorrow and people move to it, we'll follow them there. We'd rather meet you where you are than ask you to buy the right hardware first.

Where the two apps diverge

Beyond the interface, the bets differ in three concrete places. Overdue: Things marks late items with red deadline flags; ProgressCove has no overdue state at all — a past-date task is simply ongoing. Together vs. solo: Things is single-user with no sharing; ProgressCove includes household sharing in one subscription — the grocery project is shared, your own areas stay private. Ownership: Things syncs through its own cloud; ProgressCove lets you export your data anytime, with a self-hosted option coming for people who want to run their own server.

Side by side

Things 3 details reflect Cultured Code's publicly listed information at the time of writing — check their site for current specifics.

The pricing math, done honestly

Things' one-time pricing is a real advantage for one person staying on Apple for years — pay once, done. The math changes with a household: Things is per-person and per-platform, with no sharing to spread the cost, while ProgressCove's $39.99/year covers everyone in the house on any Android device or browser. A two-person mixed-device household gets its first couple of years of ProgressCove for less than one person's entry into Things — and gets a shared grocery list, which Things doesn't do.

Who should stay with Things

If you're all-Apple, work alone, prefer a one-time purchase, and the features it leaves out are ones you never wanted anyway — Things is a well-made app and there's no reason to move.

Who ProgressCove is for

Android users who liked what they read about Things but can't run it. Mixed-device couples who need one system that works on both phones. Anyone who wants a clean, calm interface without giving up sharing, a web app, or their own data. That's the gap we built for.

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