Product Improvement Case: Apple's Reminders To-Do App on iPhone

Apple's Reminders app ships free on every iPhone and lets people create tasks, set alerts and check items off. As a product manager, propose how you would make it better. Choose the goal your improvement should serve, decide which users to focus on, identify and rank their main problems, and propose solutions, explaining which one you would build first and how you would measure whether it worked. ```hint Earn the goal Ask what success means for an app that is free and already installed on every iPhone before picking users. That choice should decide which segment and which pain point you pursue. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Is there a goal Apple wants this improvement to serve, such as deeper engagement, keeping people who try the app and then abandon it, or strengthening the pull of the Apple ecosystem? - Should the improvement stay on iPhone, or may it span Apple Watch, Mac, Siri and shared lists? - Must any feature that reads personal data, such as calendar or location, run entirely on the device? - Is this for the next release or a longer roadmap? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A goal justified by Reminders' position as a free, preinstalled app inside Apple's ecosystem, with the alternatives it beats. - A segmentation of Reminders users and a reasoned choice of focus segment. - Pain points across capturing, organizing, being reminded and completing tasks, ranked for the chosen segment and checked against what the app already offers. - Solutions ranked by impact and effort, with one developed into a concrete experience. - Success metrics with guardrails, and risks such as notification fatigue, added complexity and privacy. ### Follow-up Questions - How would you tell whether your feature makes people more productive rather than just more active in the app? - Your solution adds a daily prompt. How do you keep it from becoming one more alert people swipe away? - How would your plan change if the goal were to win users away from third-party to-do apps?