Update: the new calendar view is amazing! And I love that I can add family members to my subscription, giving them access to all maple plus tools
Review: Maple has helped us keep track of all our household to-dos, from shopping lists to travel plans to getting the kids ready for school. Having everything accessible on one app for all primary caregivers has simplified our lives tremendously. There is no longer this mad back and forth of texts when I’m at the market, or stressful last minute packing or shopping. One of my favorite things about this app is that it minimizes nagging and fosters teamwork and support. Being able to share everything that has to get done allows the space for partners and other household members to share the workload. And because everyone has access to the same information, it’s easy to keep track of what gets done. The other thing I really love about this app is the new plans tab. Instead of stressing or googling like crazy for kid activities or meal plans, I can easily integrate pre-made plans into my own household channels. And it’s been a pleasant surprise to see all the amazing plans that people have put together! All in all, this is a great app and I strongly recommend you try it out. Thank you!
I love the app, the design, and the simplicity of how to use it. It is great for managing a large household with lots of activities. It’s extremely handy to be able to share folders with babysitters, other family members, and create chore charts, and to do lists and really so much more. I love all the updates that continue to stream in and it feels like Christmas when I see they have added a new ability to this app. I did however give this app 4 stars because I am struggling with when I add information to any list, note, meal plan, or folder it sometimes pops up with a Error updating message despite being connected to the internet or cell data service. Then it will either crash losing all my inputted data or the item I’m creating will delete all info I have just loaded. I have tried deleting app and reinstalling and it still doesn’t work. I still use it and still love it and I still HIGHLY recommend it for all the moms struggling for a home management system but just be aware of that tiny glitch as your creating folders/files/lists. Double check it adds it so your info doesn’t delete when you close the app.
Developer Response
Hi KTbeth2011 - Thanks for the review. So happy to hear you are enjoying Maple! Super sorry you keep getting that error message. We're looking into the issue and hopefully will get that error to stop popping up in the future. Please feel free to write us at support@growmaple.com if you have any other questions or issues! I used to have checklists, packing lists, meal planning, grocery list, and my to do list on several different apps on my phone. I was looking for an all inclusive/streamlined app to keep all of these lists in one place. Maple makes this super easy for me. Now I have all my “lists” in one place and the UI is great. Once you have built the infrastructure, it’s easy to maintain and you can add members of your family to it. We are an organized household and this helps to reduce my mental load. I have phased out my Notes app grocery list/meal planning/ packing lists and moved everything over to Maple. I’m very happy I did!
A good app in general but I get really frustrated with this. It keeps multiple things in one place which is great, but whenever I try to move a meal in the plan it puts it on some random day other than the one I move it to. Sometimes when I edit a meal it moves to a different day. Occasionally the meal plan shows empty which makes it completely useless until it repopulates (this doesn’t always happen when you refresh or close and reopen) because you can’t see what you are suppose to make.
The grocery list is also frustrating because it’s very particular when you try to drag a category to higher or lower on the list. If you don’t place it exactly right it moves back where it was. And sometimes a category moves back to where it was when you leave the list and come back.
We’ve been using Maple for at least a year and really like it. The Maple Plus upgrade is worth it. My husband and I keep a variety of Google calendars synced and we also use the “folders” for to-do lists such as online shopping returns, home maintenance, school tasks. They update the app pretty frequently and you can tell the team really cares about the app and is always working on it! The feature we use the least is the recipes and meal planning— it lacks some features we would want, such as the ability to “scrape” a recipe from a long webpage, check off ingredients as you go, etc. But overall this is a great family app and I look forward to future updates.
I have been using Maple since its release and consider it a go-to for easy-to-find recipes, household organization tips, and activities for my two active boys. I am also involved in various groups on Maple and think it’s a great way to come together for events and plannings. It is a time saver for me as a mom who also works full time and I recommend it to anyone who is looking for creative ways to balance all of a families’ To Do’s while feeling like a part of a community with people who are like-minded. When life gets a little hectic, I’ll take an app like Maple to add balance and fun into the mix ☺️.
This app has changed our life as a busy family with working parents and two kids. We finally have a single calendar that syncs back and forth from google and outlook (which my husband uses for work and he wanted to see the family activities there). I spent so much time sending him one-off invites to his work calendar, and it was so difficult to maintain and I missed a lot. Now if I get invited to a kids bday party in my gmail, it syncs to our shared maple calendar and to his work calendar! Now we can see what is going on at any time and feel like we can conquer our schedules. I also love the folder organization for our kids things and we have one for home as well. Keeps everything so organized and helps us tame the chaos and take on the day as busy parents!
Just got the app and set up my folders. Takes a while to figure out how to use but it’s pretty neat. Setting up repetitive chores is tedious but a nice function.
I really DESPERATELY NEED custom categories for the grocery list though. I love the feature, but it’s really not working for me and the synced family grocery list is definitely the top reason I downloaded this app.
As someone who 9/10 meals makes cultural, “international foods”, the American categorization of items really doesn’t make sense for me.
I guess it’s more inclusive and space saving to lump categories like fruits, vegetables, and herbs or oils, vinegars, and dressings but it just doesn’t make sense to me when I’m trying to figure out where to put olive oil, garlic, and soy sauce when in my head those are all pantry items that go together. Garlic is certainly not a vegetable or an herb, it’s an aromatic. I see no oil and sauce/seasoning category, only a pasta/pasta sauce. There is a condiments & sauces category but that just conjures things like ketchup. Not black pepper and fish sauce. And why is rice its own category?
So it’s been kind of an unpleasant experience to choose categories for my groceries and as much work as it would be for me, I really need the freedom to just write in my category like you can write in a section for all the other to-do lists.
Developer Response
Hi Dannyuicha,
Thank you for sending through your feedback on Maple's shopping list. Our shopping list feature is on our roadmap for updating in the near future, with tons of improvements coming to Maple families. I've relayed your feedback to the team— and we take feedback seriously. We'll see what we can do to better your experience. If there are other ways we can help make things easier at home, please don't hesitate to email us at support@growmaple.com
-LaurenI tried this on a whim, looking for a place on my phone that I could share multiple methods of communication and lists with my partner. This fit the bill, and more. I love all the different types of lists and features. I love that I can organize folders by person, place or thing. My favorite part is the activity center. It’s passive communication between my partner and me. We can each see what the other is doing or needs. I love it! The surprise feature I didn’t anticipate using but love is the meal planning feature. I can’t wait to see what Maple comes up with next to streamline my brain and my family’s life.
Developer Response
Hi Liz!
Thank you so much for giving Maple a try. We're thrilled you're finding it so helpful. We have A LOT more in store for Maple families this summer. We're excited for it.
I sent your review to the team. It made everyone's day!
-Lauren So far I really like this app as a competitor to FamilyWall. However, it misses out on a few things that I personally find very valuable—I cannot customise the defaults on the Calendar, so every time I input a new event I have to take the time to adjust the notifications, and make sure the event doesn’t get added to my food prep list (seriously?). The calendar also doesn’t include public holidays, and there’s no option to set task events (like recurring bills) to not show on the main calendar. This clutters my scheduling calendar quite a lot and makes the various event lists less desirable to use.
It outshines FamilyWall in the impressive offerings for tools and including the meal prep and budgeting options inside the paywall. However, the calendar pitfalls are (to me) major drawbacks, considering the calendar is the most important function for a busy family. Event lists? Awesome addition. Not being able to customise those key functions? Not awesome.
My final gripe—no swipe to delete function on to-do lists, and no “delete all completed tasks” option. You have to manually select, scroll, and click delete on every list item to clear them away completely after they’ve been checked off.
I want to love this app! It has some awesome features and is beautifully robust—but these little functionality features make it hard to want to switch from my current workhorse.
Developer Response
Hi Brie!
Thank you for your feedback. Calendar is a biggie! We are currently outlining work to make huge improvements to the Maple calendar, so your feedback comes at the perfect time. I've relayed all your requests and frustrations to the product team and they're digging into them to figure out how to make the app better so we can make your life easier. If you have any other feedback about how Maple can better serve your family, please email us at support@growmaple.com
-Lauren
MathWiz314159
KTbeth2011
Reeseboge
PirkJS
ForestGrl
MacUser5
Girl in Tech
Dannyuicha
Liz O.
UnBrieLievable
