Planner apps without AI, checked against each developer's own listing

Who wrote this: Kalend is our own app and it is the first of the 9 entries below. We list it first deliberately, because it is what we would use, and you should read it with that in mind. It is judged on the same fields as everything else and carries its own stated drawbacks, including that it is iPhone only and still in development rather than on the App Store. There are no affiliate links on this page.

Kalend is listed first on this page and Kalend is ours — we make it, so read its position as our placement rather than as a verdict. It is judged on exactly the same fields as everything below it and carries the same kind of drawback list, including the ones that will rule it out for a lot of people. Every other app here was checked against its own App Store listing or the developer's own website, and anything a developer does not state is left out rather than guessed at.

The reason to check rather than remember is that this category moves in release notes. An app that was a plain list two years ago can ship an assistant in a point update, and the listing is usually the only place that says so before you notice it in the interface. Three apps on this page have something model-shaped on their own official pages right now — Apple's Reminders listing describes Apple Intelligence suggesting tasks from shared content, Things' App Store release notes describe groundwork for a future Apple Intelligence integration, and 2Do's Mac page describes an MCP server that lets Claude or another agent act on your live tasks. None of that is hidden. It is just not the thing anyone reads.

That also sets the shape of this list. Because the filter is what a planner does with your text rather than what it costs, several free apps come out badly and several paid one-off apps come out well. Where a developer publishes a price it is given; where the model matters more than the number, the model is described. Where a claim could not be found on an official page, it is not made.

At a glance

The apps in detail

What is still missing

The category still treats "no AI" as a permanent property of an app rather than as today's reading. Almost every app on this page was model-free when it was first recommended on privacy grounds, and the ones that have changed did not launch a new product to do it — the change arrived in a release note. Things' App Store notes describe groundwork for a future Apple Intelligence integration. Apple's Reminders listing already describes Apple Intelligence suggesting tasks from shared content. 2Do's Mac page describes an MCP server for agents. A roundup written once and left alone will keep recommending all three as safe long after their own listings have stopped saying so, and readers have no signal that the page has gone stale.

The second thing this category gets wrong is treating the App Store privacy card as the answer. The card describes what a developer collects and whether it is linked to you, which is a useful floor and not a ceiling. It is not written to answer "does my text get sent to a model", and a feature you switched on yourself, using a key you supplied, is a different question from data collection. Obsidian's Interpreter is the clean example: the app stores your notes locally and Obsidian says it cannot read them, and the Web Clipper's Interpreter is disabled until you turn it on and configure a provider. Both facts are true, both are on Obsidian's own pages, and neither appears on a privacy card. The only reliable check is reading the feature list and the release notes on the developer's own site before you install and again when the app updates.

Kalend is at the far end of that trade — no model, no account, no server of ours, and sync that runs entirely through your own iCloud — and the price of standing there is real. Because the sync path is your personal iCloud, there is no sharing and no collaboration at all: you cannot assign a task to anyone or share a list, which rules it out for households and teams in a way that Apple Reminders is not ruled out. It is iPhone only, with no Android, no web, no iPad-optimised build and no Mac version. And it is still in development rather than on the App Store, so if you need something today, one of the eight apps below it is the answer rather than Kalend.

Common questions

How can I tell if a planner app sends my tasks to an AI?

Read three places on the developer's own property, in this order: the feature list on their website, the App Store description, and the version history or release notes. Assistants and auto-scheduling are selling points, so developers describe them — 2Do's Mac page names Claude and MCP directly, Sorted³ lists Auto Schedule and Natural Language Processing on its App Store entry, and Apple's Reminders listing names Apple Intelligence. Release notes matter as much as the description, because that is where a feature appears first. If none of those three mention a model, an assistant, an intelligence or an automatic scheduler, there is nothing published to act on.

Does the App Store privacy card tell me whether an app uses AI?

No, and this is the most common mistake. The card answers what the developer collects and whether it is tied to your identity — categories like User Content, Identifiers, Usage Data and Diagnostics. It has no field for "sends text to a model". An app can show a card listing only crash diagnostics and still offer a feature that sends what you type to a provider you configured, because that is not the developer collecting it. Use the card to check whether user content is listed as linked to you, which is genuinely useful, and use the feature list and release notes for the AI question.

Is Apple Reminders an AI-free planner app?

Not by Apple's own description. The Reminders App Store listing states that when you share content into the app, Apple Intelligence will suggest relevant tasks and grocery items from what you are looking at. That matters beyond Reminders itself, because apps such as GoodTask read and write the same Reminders and Calendars database, so choosing one of those does not put your data somewhere else. If you want a planner with nothing of that kind described anywhere on its official pages, the entries built on their own store rather than Apple's are the ones to look at.

Are paid planner apps less likely to add AI than free ones?

There is no rule, but the incentive differs. Apps sold as a one-off purchase — Things and Streaks — have no recurring revenue to justify with new headline features, and nothing on their published feature lists describes an assistant or an auto-scheduler. OmniFocus sells both a perpetual licence and a subscription, and its features page still describes no AI. That said, 2Do is a one-off purchase on Mac and its Mac page now describes an MCP server, so paying once guarantees nothing. The practical version of this question is whether the app has a subscription that needs renewing, because that is where new features get pushed hardest.

What should I check before installing a planner app if I do not want my diary in a model?

Four things, all on official pages. First, where the data physically goes — an app syncing through your own iCloud or a CalDAV server you run is a different arrangement from one syncing through the developer's service. Second, whether the sync is described as end-to-end encrypted; OmniFocus and Obsidian Sync both state this on their own pages. Third, whether any assistant, auto-scheduler or natural language feature appears in the description. Fourth, whether there is a journal or notes field at all, because free-text entries are the part most people actually mind about, and a tasks-only app has less of your writing to begin with.