Kanban app for iPhone: a real board in your pocket

The short answer. A good Kanban app for iPhone treats the phone as a real place for a board: columns you can drag cards between, one column at a time when you are checking in, the whole board when you are planning, and the same board waiting on your iPad and Mac. Hense does exactly that: it is free on the App Store, cards move with a drag, and everything syncs through iCloud with no account. Apple Reminders can show a list as columns too (since iOS 18), and this guide is honest about when that is enough.

What people actually want from Kanban on a phone

Most “Kanban on iPhone” searches come from one of two places. Either you already use a board somewhere (a web app at work, a whiteboard, a Trello account you are tired of) and you want it in your pocket, or you have heard that a board beats a to-do list and you want to try it on the device you always carry.

Both groups hit the same wall. A phone screen is narrow. Apps that were designed for a browser tend to cram a board into it, and the built-in option, Apple Reminders, treats columns as a display mode of a list rather than as a board: no board colors, no per-board labels, no way to zoom out to the whole project, and nothing that carries the board across several projects. It is a fine first board, and the Reminders guide covers exactly where it runs out.

So the real question is not “which app has the word Kanban in its name.” It is “which app treats an iPhone screen as a first-class place for a board.”

What a board needs to work on an iPhone screen

After a year of shipping Hense on iPhone, these are the things that matter in practice:

A column view that fits the screen. One column at a time, full width, with a swipe to the next one. You read a column like a list and move through the board like pages.
A way to zoom out. Sometimes you need to see the whole board to understand where things stand. A zoomed-out view with all columns in a horizontal scroll covers that.
Drag and drop that works with a thumb. Long-press, lift, drop. If moving a card takes a menu, you will stop moving cards.
Quick actions where your thumb already is. Long-press a card for edit, copy, move, delete. No hunting through toolbars.
Search that jumps to the card. On a phone you will not scroll through five columns looking for one card.
Sync to your bigger screens. The phone is where you capture and check. The iPad or Mac is where you plan. They have to show the same board.

Setting up your first board on iPhone (five minutes)

In Hense

Download Hense from the App Store and open it. There is no sign-up. The welcome flow builds a sample board in front of you and then hands you a real starter board to keep.
Create a board with the plus button. Name it after the thing you are organizing (Job Hunt, Japan Trip, Home & Life) and pick one of fifteen colors. The color shows up in your board list, so pick different colors for different areas of life.
Add columns for your stages. Tap Add Column. To Do, Doing, Done is the classic set. The free version allows 5 columns per board, which is enough for To Do, Doing, Waiting, Done and one more of your choosing.
Add cards. Tap Add Card at the bottom of a column and type a title. Open the card to add a description, a due date, a checklist, a label, or a photo.
Move a card by pressing and holding it, then dragging it into another column. You will feel a small tap when it lands.

That is a working board. Everything else in this guide is refinement.

Two ways to look at a board on iPhone

Hense gives the iPhone two layouts, and you switch between them with the button in the top-right corner of a board:

Paginated view shows one column at a time. Swipe left and right to move between columns. This is the mode for reading and updating a column on the go: what is in Doing, what is due, what can be checked off.
Zoomed view shrinks the columns so several fit side by side and you scroll horizontally. This is the mode for the “where does everything stand” look, and for dragging a card across more than one column in a single move.

iPad and Mac always use the zoomed layout, because the screen has room. The paginated view is iPhone-only, and it is the reason a board is readable on a phone at all.

Moving work: drag, long-press, or Move to Column

There are three ways to move a card on iPhone, and each suits a situation:

Drag and drop for the everyday move. Press and hold a card until it lifts, drag it to the target column (in paginated view, drag toward the edge to reach the next column), and drop it. Cards drop below the card you are pointing at.
Long-press, then Move to Column for a precise move across several columns. The context menu lists the board’s other columns, so a card can go from Ideas to Published in one tap.
Copy Card when you want the same task in two places, for example a recurring errand that belongs to this week and next week. Copying is a Pro feature.

Keeping the board honest with dates, checklists, and labels

A board on a phone gets checked often and in short bursts, so it helps when a card carries its own status:

Due dates. A card with a due date shows it on the card face. Overdue turns red, due today turns orange, so a glance at the Doing column tells you what is on fire.
Checklists. Break a card into steps and check them off. The card shows a progress badge, so “Book the trip” reads as 2 of 5 without opening it. Free allows 5 checklist items per card; Pro removes the limit.
Labels. Color-coded, per board. On a personal board, labels usually mean who it is for or what kind of work it is (Errands, Health, Home). Filter the board by a label with the filter button in the toolbar. Free allows 3 labels per board.
Attachments. Add a photo or a file from your library or the Files app, and open it in place. One attachment per card on Free, unlimited on Pro.

Finding a card when you cannot remember which column it is in

Tap the search field at the bottom of a board and type a few letters. Hense searches the board’s cards and columns as you type, and tapping a result scrolls the board to that card and highlights it. Recent searches are remembered.

Search within the current board is free. Hense Pro adds search across every board at once, plus two filters that pay for themselves on a busy phone: label:client finds every card with the label, and column:doing finds everything in a column. You can combine them with words: invoice label:client.

What syncs, and what happens offline

Hense stores your boards on the iPhone itself and syncs them through your own iCloud account. That has three consequences that matter on a phone:

It works with no signal. Add, edit, and move cards on the subway; changes sync when you are back online.
There is no account to create. If you are signed in to iCloud on the phone (you are, if you use Photos or Notes), sync is already on.
Your iPad and Mac show the same boards within seconds. Long-press a board name on the phone and it is the same board you dragged around on the Mac at your desk.

If a board ever looks stale on one device, the support page lists the three things to check, and the sync indicator in the toolbar shows what is happening.

Where the free version ends on iPhone

Free includes 2 boards with up to 5 columns each, 3 labels per board, 5 checklist items per card, 1 attachment per card, drag and drop, board search, and iCloud sync. That is a complete personal system for one or two areas of life.

Hense Pro is a one-time $9.99 USD purchase, not a subscription. It removes every limit and adds copying boards, columns, and cards, end-state columns, global search, and the label: and column: filters. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Frequently asked questions

Does Hense show real Kanban columns on iPhone?

Yes. Hense shows real columns on iPhone, either one column at a time (paginated view) or several side by side (zoomed view), and you drag cards between them. Apple Reminders can also show a list as columns on iPhone since iOS 18, but as a view of a list rather than a board with its own color, labels, checklists, and cross-board search.

Is Hense free on iPhone?

Yes. Hense is free to download and use on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. The free version includes 2 boards, 5 columns per board, 3 labels, checklists, one attachment per card, board search, and iCloud sync. Hense Pro is a one-time $9.99 USD purchase with no subscription.

Does the iPhone board sync with iPad and Mac?

Yes. Hense is one universal app. Boards sync automatically through your iCloud account to every device signed in with the same Apple Account, with nothing else to set up and no separate account for Hense.

Can I use Hense on iPhone without an internet connection?

Yes. Boards are stored on the device, so you can add, edit, and move cards offline. Changes sync through iCloud when you are back online.

Which iPhones does Hense support?

Any iPhone running iOS 18 or later. Hense also runs on iPad (iPadOS 18 or later) and Mac (macOS 15 or later) as part of the same purchase.

Kanban on iPhone: how to run a real board from your pocket