What’s wrong with Microsoft To-Do: 8 things lacking in Wunderlist’s replacement - burgessthenoth

Last week, Microsoft successful the inscrutable conclusion to retire Wunderlist, the beloved to-do list app it acquired in 2015, and replace it with a new offering called Microsoft To-Do.

Wunderlist isn't active by yet, but it's no longer acquiring feature updates, and its long-term fate is sealed. In a blog position, Microsoft said it bequeath retire the app after incorporating "your valued feedback and the optimum elements of the Wunderlist live into Disturbance."

Microsoft has its work cut outgoing. In its current "preview" state, Microsoft To-Do is a bare-castanets job manager, with none of the hefty features that made Wunderlist cracking. Here's the long list of features that Microsoft should deliberate delivery all over if the ship's company wants to offer up a competent replacement:

Collaboration

Jared Newman / PCWorld

Shared out lists are an crucial feature of Wunderlist.

The biggest omission from Microsoft To-Do, away farthest, is the ability to collaborate with others. Today, the app doesn't let you part a list with another users or go out comments—some inwardness features of Wunderlist. You also can't assign a task to someone else, which is a feature of Wunderlist's $5-per-month Pro plan.

Microsoft says it's "functioning hard" to add list sharing to its To-Do app, which makes sense given that the company is pitching it American Samoa an enterprise-gear up tool for Office 365 users. But Microsoft has not given a timeline, and information technology's shocking the company proclaimed the end of Wunderlist without indefinite of its shaping features in place.

Integration with strange services

Zapier

Zapier recipes are among the integrations that form Wunderlist more useful.

One reason Wunderlist is thusly powerful is that IT hooks into several third-party services. You can automate task creation with Zapier, beam task notifications to Slack or Hipchat, produce tasks with Google or Cortana voice commands, turn away emails into tasks in Outlook, and attach files to a task through Dropbox.

Away comparison, Microsoft To-Do has one integration, and that's the ability to synchronize Outlook Tasks to the app. Spell Microsoft says this is "the first of a whole lean of integrations we want to build," don't contain your breath. The companionship sang a similar tune up about Sunrise Calendar—another beloved app IT acquired in 2015—and we all saw how smoothly that went.

Folders and subtasks

Jared Newman / PCWorld

Existence able to organize tasks is must for project direction.

Other unmatchable of Microsoft To-Do's feature omissions is more basic: You can't go tasks into folders or add subtasks to them. As a freelance writer, I keep separate folders for potential story pitches and assignments to complete, with a different listing for each publication. Having subtasks too comes in handy for assignments with multiple components, such as a cluster of product reviews. Not being able to organize tasks this room makes protrude management much more cumbersome.

Importing Wunderlist tasks into Microsoft To-Do currently triggers a warning message that says subtasks aren't supported yet. IT's possible Microsoft volition add this feature eventually. But as with every other missing Wunderlist feature, there's none timeframe.

Bright lists

Jared Paul Leonard Newman / PCWorld

Wunderlist can automatically show "smart lists" when they're relevant, and hide them when they're not.

Additionally to manually created chore lists, Wunderlist stool generate its own based on daily and period of time due dates, entering assignments, and starred tasks. This can help users centre on higher-priority tasks. No so much feature exists in Microsoft To-Do, which also doesn't support starring tasks the least bit.

To-Do's "My Day" feature seems the likes of it could be a endure-in, allowing users to gather up tasks from across all their lists and put down them on the Day's docket. But this feature operates on the faulty assumption that important tasks only need a day's worth of attention. That's not always the case.

Calendar tie-ins

Jared Newman / PCWorld

Viewing Wunderlist callable dates connected your calendar pot help avoid programing mishaps.

With Wunderlist, users can buoy remember a link for their do-lists and import it into calendar services such as Google Calendar and iCloud Calendar. That manner, users can see outstanding due dates while making appointments. (The Outlook mobile app makes this even easier, with an option to lumber into Wunderlist straight done the app.) With To-Do, owed dates are relegated to the app itself, creating much make-work when you're trying to project.

File attachments

Jared Newman / PCWorld

Wunderlist supports file attachments for when checklists alone aren't enough.

Want to include a picture of the item your spouse needs to snaffle from the grocery store? How astir a document for a job you've assigned to a fellow worker? Wunderlist allows you to attach these files directly to a task. Pro users can even sync files from Dropbox. Microsoft To-Do is limited to checkboxes and notes.

Smartwatch apps

Wunderlist

Wunderlist was among the first apps to funding the Apple Watch over.

Scoff at smartwatches if you want, but being able to add and check along tasks from your wrist is one ane of their best not-fitness use cases. Wunderlist does a great job of bearing smartwatches, with official apps on the Apple Vigil and Android Wear platforms. On my Pebble Time Steel, I use a third-party app called WunderVoice to quickly dictate new tasks. It takes just a copulate of button taps, and it's far faster than pulling stunned my phone operating theater laptop. Microsoft To-Perform, meanwhile, supports iOS, Humanoid, Windows, and the web, but not smartwatches. (Also, the iOS app doesn't seem to be iPad-optimized as yet.)

Background themes

Jared Newman / PCWorld

A selection of backgrounds make Wunderlist a little more fun to practice.

In Wunderlist, users crapper select from over a dozen background images and patterns (or more than, for Professional users). Microsoft To-Do has background themes Eastern Samoa well, simply limits them to private task lists. That approach makes sense in theory—it's nice to sustain a fun theme for vacation planning, and a serious one for lin—but in practice setting up a theme for each name just creates more busywork. Wunderlist's background knowledge themes Crataegus laevigata not be an essential feature, merely they're a pleasant touch.

Wherefore, Microsoft?

In fairness, Microsoft is calling its new To-Do app a preview—though information technology is connected version 1.0 or higher connected whol platforms—so information technology's at any rate acknowledging that the product is uncomplete. Provided Wunderlist sticks around long enough for To-Fare to become equal or amended, perhaps there's no harm done.

Microsoft

To-Do, a bare-clappers app that's somehow divinatory to become better than Wunderlist.

But if that's the goal, it's indistinct why Microsoft International Relations and Security Network't evenhanded building polish off Wunderlist instead of replacing it. Wunderlist is already an elegant flutter list app, hitting the pleasing situatio between simplicity and complexness. There doesn't look to constitute anything inherently broken about it, the layout is similar to that of its replacement, and it's even being improved away the previous Wunderlist squad. Instead of reinventing the wheel, why not rebrand information technology, the way Microsoft did when IT turned Acompli into Outlook? Unfortunately, Microsoft hasn't provided whatsoever separate of insight connected the topic. Wunderlist devotees are left hand in the dark.

Non that I'm protrusive around. Now that Wunderlist is a dead app walking, I'm giving Todoist a shot. It has a similar layout and features, merely with some extras much as AI-enhanced programming, IFTTT integrating, and support for Alexa voice commands. Best of all, it's notwithstandin in active development, by a company that's property and profitable. Those who want to check out something a piece disparate mightiness also consider Any.do, Remember the Milk, or Asana. As Microsoft plays a needless game of catch-up with these competitors, information technology'll have to suffer its "valued feedback" from someone else.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/406501/whats-wrong-with-microsoft-to-do-8-things-lacking-in-wunderlists-replacement.html

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