Habit List for iPhone review: Keep track of your habits and set attainable goals

All of us have bad habits we'd like to break and replace with good ones. Habit List for iPhone allows you to add goals that you'd like to achieve either on daily, weekly, or unscheduled intervals. Once you've completed a goal you've set for yourself, you can swipe to mark it off. As you start doing things every day, you'll notice that you obtain streaks within Habit List. If you forget to do things or fall off schedule, you'll see a negative streak for the days you haven't met your goals for accomplishing certain habits.

Habit List makes it easy to start using it and adding things. Once you've launched the app you'll be automatically taken to today's date. Just start tapping the "+" sign in the upper right hand corner to add new habits you'd like to make for yourself. The cool thing about Habits list is that there are several options as far as notifications and intervals. You can set habits to repeat every day, every few days, or just set them loosely so you set a goal to do them so many days a week.

Next to each habit, you'll see a number off to the left. This number represents your streak and how many times you've completed that habit in a row when it's scheduled. If you see a red number with a negative sign in front of it, that means you've missed performing that habit for that many days. Completing it will bring the count back to 1 and you'll start over on your streak.

Tapping on any habit within a list will show you statistics on that habit in weekly breakdowns. You can see a calendar view that'll show you how many times you've completed a particular habit followed by a completion rate percentage based on how many times you've achieved it and missed it. Along the top you can toggle between calendar view and stat view. Stat view will show bar graph representations that'll break down how many times you completed that habit in any particular week. At the bottom you'll also be reminded how many times you've chosen to do that habit.

From the Today screen you can tap on today or tap on the lower left icon in the bottom menu to pull out the submenu. Here you can jump to different days so if you forget to mark off a habit from yesterday, you can always jump back in and mark it at any time. To mark something as complete, just swipe across the title of it and you'll see a line appear through it which marks it as complete for the day. You can also tap on the repeating items icon in the bottom navigation in order to view what habits you've set to repeat. Here you can also reorder how they show up in your lists.

The good

  • Absolutely gorgeous interface
  • Streaks make you more aware of where you stand at a quick glance
  • Notification support makes it easy to remember to do repeating items every day
  • Passcode lock support

The bad

  • Would be nice to see support for monthly tasks but it's not a deal breaker

The bottom line

We've all got bad habits we want to replace, but in order to do that we typically have to put better ones in their place. Habit List can easily help you do this. With the ability to create rigorous habits or looser ones, it's got options for any kind of habit you'd like to form.

If you're looking to make some changes in your daily routine, Habit List make be just what you're looking for.

Allyson Kazmucha

iMore senior editor from 2011 to 2015.