Andy Kim with Potion Factory contacted us a few minutes ago to reveal that he is seeking testers for the upcoming closed beta of the iPhone version of The Hit List.

Those wanting to be in the program are asked to submit how they best use The Hit List in their daily routine. From those entries, 10 people will be selected for the beta. Full rules are disclosed on Potion Factory's Web site. All entries must be received before September 21.

The iPhone version of The Hit List comes not a moment too soon. As indicated by the software's Google Group, users who adopted the program over the past year were migrating back to other GTD applications, such as Things, due to the lack of an iPhone app. As a fan of The Hit List, I was doing my best to hold out and see if an iPhone app would come along. I'm very happy not to be disappointed.

Potion Factory's The Hit List introduces repeating tasks to the GTD-style client, but in a pretty neat way. Instead of the traditional method of indicating how often a task should repeat, users can type directly into the "repeating" field, using natural language to describe when and how many times it should reoccur. For example, if I wanted a reminder to return my library books, I simply would type in "every 3 weeks on Wednesday." Then a short menu appears indicating how often I'd like for that particular task to repeat itself. Once I complete that chore, it'll jump ahead to the next date it's due.

Repeating tasks is something that's been requested since the program debuted, and I really like how you can dig into the specifics of creating them. Potion Factory's Andy Kim acknowledges in his blog entry that the one huge drawback to this feature right now is localization. It's just not there at the moment, but that issue will be resolved once the code itself has been hammered out.

Other features in this update, as seen on the release notes, include:

• AppleScript support.
• Different way to tweak tasks including smart-folder-like capabilities and disabling the auto-completion of parent tasks when sub-tasks are finished.
  
• Duplicate any list, folder, or smart folder by right clicking in the source list.
• When emails are dragged and dropped into a task, it adds the sender's name and email address in addition to the subject.
• Various keyboard shortcut tweaks.
• Many more bug fixes and small features than we have room to list here.

A few weeks ago, Brett wrote about his first impressions with The Hit List from Potion Factory, a task management application that goes toe to toe with OmniFocus and Things. He was extremely impressed with what the release, then just entering private beta, offered. "We haven't seen a lot of waves in the advanced, visually polished task manager wars lately, but this one is going to storm the gates," he said then. I have to agree.

Brett is a power user for this sort of program, but I'm brand new to it. After investing $100 into the OmniFocus applications only to wind up frustrated with them weeks later, I had started to look to Things when the private beta for The Hit List came out. I wanted a place where I could keep complicated to-do lists for projects alongside simple lists for basic tasks such as a to-read list and what books I wanted from the library.

The Hit List hits that sweet spot where it's got enough features for power users, but the absolute beginner can tailor it to their own needs -- much like Literature and Latte's Scrivener for the writing crowd. Some of the included features that beta testers enjoyed include being able to navigate the program almost completely via keyboard (think Quicksilver) and a slick timer that lets you know exactly how much time you've spent on a task, a tagging system that syncs well with iCal (at least from my experience), tabbed interface and more.

The Hit List is moving from private to public beta with the official release candidate now available. A Google Group for users has also been set up. The Hit List will retail for $69.95, but the pre-order price is $49.95 and will be available at that price until version 1.0 is released. The Hit List's future does include an eventual iPhone app.

And, a great little Easter Egg: While examining the package's contents, I discovered audio cues set to Super Mario Bros. and Star Wars. I haven't figured out where in the application they're used yet, but if you've tested it and figured it out, let us know in the comments!

The Hit List, from the Potion Factory, is a new task management application set to go head-to-head with Things and OmniFocus. We haven't seen a lot of waves in the advanced, visually polished task manager wars lately, but this one is going to storm the gates. I tend to get overexcited about new productivity apps, but after test driving the beta release of The Hit List for a day, I'm convinced it's worthy of all the excitement I can muster. A few of us here at TUAW, in fact, have been trading notes and are in agreement that this one is a serious competitor.

The Hit List combines my favorite aspects of Things with some of the niceties of OmniFocus, and then adds some visual polish and usability tweaks. It works in a single, tabbed window; nice, because I've always been bothered by the floating palettes in OmniFocus. Beyond my personal tastes, though, the interface is beautiful both in aesthetics and simplicity. I can see immediately what each item on the screen means and infer what each button is going to do. For those with advanced needs, The Hit List provides a full-fledged tagging system, filtering and sorting, contexts and projects, notes, links ... the only thing I haven't seen yet is repeating tasks, but the application is still in development. Despite its beta status, though, it's been stable and highly usable.

The system-wide Quick Entry window is as simple and powerful as any on the market, and the tagging and context system is based on keyboard symbols ("/" and "@"), so adding them is easy: you just type them at the end of your task name. The interface is almost 100% keyboard-navigable; tasks can be moved and filed with a few keystrokes, and tags, contexts, start and due dates can be added to a highlighted task with their respective shortcuts.

A projected retail price of $70 places it between Things and Omnifocus on the cost scale. Given the features and ease-of-use it provides, I'll gladly pay in that range. The biggest problem for The Hit List is going to be that most of its target users have probably already shelled out for Things and/or OmniFocus. I think that a test drive will prove pretty convincing for a lot of folks, though.

The Hit List just went into private beta recently, but Andy from the Potion Factory is welcoming new testers. If you have the time to file bug reports and feature requests, head over to Google Groups and sign up for the discussion and get the download. [Google Groups link fixed, sorry!]