Cozi Family Organizer

My family has been using this app (gold version) for over 6 years and have loved it. However, the new monthly layout is terrible and not worth the money. The color coding is nice but it makes it too difficult to see my all of my events at a glance. More of the title needs to be displayed. The older version was way better. This new layout doesn’t work well on smaller screens. The iPad is bad and the iPhone is unusable. Users should not have to click on another button to see their day in full. Extra button pushes mean more work and users cannot see all the events for a certain days in order to decide what day to schedule new events. It now, literally only shows 2 events per day. The older version would allow me to see all the events in a given month and I could easily see where a new appointment would fit into my busy schedule. Now I have to open up each day separately to see what is already scheduled. This takes at least 7 times more effort. This change is seriously making me re-evaluate my need for the monthly view. The cost of gold is no longer worth the cost of the service and will most likely drive my family to cancel the service and find a different scheduling app. We specifically switched from google calendar to cozi because of your monthly layout as viewed on an iPhone. Now with the change I fear we will be switching back. Heavy sad face. And further more from the recent reviews, even the free version has turned to garbage. The developers have ruined a perfectly great product.

We started using the Cozi when our two oldest kids were in high school. Two varsity athletes and athletic club participants, a child in elementary school, and two parents who travel for work made for a daunting job of keeping track of all the commitments. Our bigs are now in college, youngest is just about to enter middle school and we both still travel for work. This app is perfect for any family with a ton of balls to juggle. Everyone (including the pets) are part of our group. We can keep track of every aspect we need to know for scheduling appointments, work trips, meals...literally everything. Before my husband or I agree to a meeting out of town, we can make sure no conflicts exist with our youngest child (someone is always home for her.) The notifications help keep everyone up to date on the latest changes immediately. Meal planning is simple as we can decide what kinds of meals will work best on any given day ( both of us out all day, crockpot meal; after school lessons, something quick ; just two for dinner, portion adjustment) Plus, having the meal plan allows whoever is home first to get dinner started since the recipe is also available in the app. Running to the store? Grocery list of needed items is available to confirm we have everything we need. Anything we do is in the Cozi, it is a great tool. It keeps us on track and running smoothly.

The good: It successfully fulfills the purpose of having a ‘family management app’ and it’s nice that it has the ability to notify family members of events with multiple reminders. I LOVE the recipe tab and like that it is easy to transfer those ingredients to the shopping cart. I appreciate that my husband and I can keep track of what’s going on and what’s needed all in one place. The bad: not entirely super user friendly, in that it’s easy to do things but not as easy to undo them. Like when you transfer the ingredients to the shopping cart, you have to individually delete each item as needed rather than selecting multiple (at least on the mobile app, it sure how that part is on the desktop). You can’t just select an entire recipe and delete if you accidentally add it twice. Also, I putting a ton of appointments was way easier on a desktop (at initial startup) than on the phone, but adding individual events is fine. Lastly, I added my kids as family members only to keep my husband and I in the loop of who is where, and it’s frustrating to have to uncheck their names in the “notify” section because they don’t have their own emails so I was getting five “notifications” since it was mine plus 4 of them until I started removing them. It could be a little smoother in that aspect. Overall though, the price is good for what you get (I NEVER pay for apps, but was willing to for this one!!) it’s been a life saver but could use some improvements.