Microsoft To-Do [1 Year Later]: Wunderlist Still Wins

I've never been 1 for reminders, lists, notes, or really any tool that helps organizes my life. I'm just stubborn and they've never captured my interest.

Recently, I started using Wunderlist in another attempt to become more efficient. While Microsoft is building out To-Practise – the Wunderlist replacement – at a glacial pace, Wunderlist is yet much more useful today than the newer tool, specially when you lot use Cortana. This is why.

It all started with a grocery list ...

When your meaning other insists on using a pen and paper to brand a grocery list right next to her Surface Pro, y'all have to question how it all went wrong. Surely there must be a better way, peculiarly since afterwards, when you went to the store, you lot forget the grocery list at home.

Enter in Wunderlist with its coveted shared lists. On firing up the Wunderlist app for Windows ten and Android, information technology becomes evident why it remains such a popular service. Creating a list and adding people from your contacts – like Outlook calendar invites – lets you easily collaborate and get alive updates on changes.

In my household, we accept a shared grocery list, with things for the house, and I'1000 also using information technology for work to keep track of ideas for stories. I'chiliad even using the folders option at the gym where I can add together new exercises and notes for new routines. The grocery list is shared, and when either of us buys something (removes) or adds something to the listing a notification lets usa know.

And support for iOS, Android, and Windows ten makes information technology even more valuable.

Linking Cortana to Wunderlist and Invoke

My Invoke speaker is much more useful one time linked to Wunderlist and shared with family.

Cortana already has a built-in "lists" feature nether its Notebook. However, users tin can add Wunderlist to Cortana via the continued apps feature. One time complete, the Cortana grocery list is the Wunderlist grocery list and vice versa.

Using Cortana and Wunderlist together is a boom. While on my PC I tin can add together things through Cortana and they appear in Wunderlist (including that shared grocery list).

Cortana lets y'all do text, but it's the voice role that's the near fun. Say "Hey, Cortana … add together coffee to the grocery listing," and it is done. While the ability to use "Hey Cortana" – the phonation activated part of the digital assistant – is not new, leveraging the Harman Kardon Invoke speaker is (for those in the U.S., at least).

Cortana lets you lot connect many popular services to it including Wunderlist (but non To-Do).

The Invoke speaker becomes much more useful now with Wunderlist linked. Barking out commands to add this or that to my various lists has been liberating. Having those lists shared with family members is even cooler as they all merely update in the deject to their devices.

This all raises an consequence I accept with Cortana. To become to your lists, you demand to dig a bit into the menus, and it is not nearly every bit convenient to use compared to Wunderlist. Information technology's also meliorate in Windows 10 since you can pivot frequently-accessed lists to Start for quick admission.

Cortana also unfortunately lacks many of the features – including sharing – that Wunderlist brings.

What to do almost To-Do

Microsoft Launcher on Android integrates with Wunderlist, merely not To-Do.

Microsoft bought the company backside Wunderlist in 2022. Next month, it will exist ane year since the Wunderlist squad appear Microsoft To-Do app. Wunderlist is now in maintenance mode and will eventually be phased out when To-Do ramps up. From that announcement:

Nosotros have big plans for Microsoft To-Do. In the coming weeks and months, we'll bring you more features such as list sharing, apps for Mac, iPad, and Android Tablet, too as more integrations with other Microsoft services.

To-Do is available on iOS, Android, and Windows 10. But if you are a dedicated Wunderlist fan (or a new convert like myself), Microsoft To-Do ultimately pales in comparison nearly a year afterward its release.

Those sought-after shared lists are the thing that makes Wunderlist. But they're nowhere to be seen in To-Exercise. Cortana or Windows Ink integration? Nope.

Information technology is strange to see Cortana support – and fifty-fifty endorse – Wunderlist as an add-on but skip over To-Do. Even Microsoft's Launcher for Android still ties into Wunderlist as a login selection, but it has nix to do with To-Do.

I'thousand more than willing to cede development time to the Wunderlist team to get it right, simply later a year, the feature prepare of Microsoft To-Do feels miles behind Wunderlist, with no signs of improving. Information technology's not even entirely clear why To-Do needs to be versus but rebranding Wunderlist every bit a Microsoft product.

The lack of urgency and a clear roadmap to bringing feature parity to To-Exercise from Wunderlist is worrisome. When combined with the problems surrounding Cortana in general, it starts to expect like Microsoft is, again, its own worst enemy.

A continued future is coming ... slowly

The good news is Wunderlist still works well. Combined with being available on all my devices and working with Cortana and the Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker, I have a chance to get more organized. Finally.

But the Wunderlist team needs to get going. Bringing things similar back up for hashtags or Microsoft Flow is excellent, but the core features of Wunderlist demand to happen now. The To-Do team has reportedly flipped the switch on the development of Cortana and shared lists, but at that place is even so no deadline for when those changes will happen.

I see a vivid future for tools that let users collaborate inside apps and services across devices. Microsoft is keen on the idea, with apps like Whiteboard, Teams, OneNote and Office. Toss in hardware options like Always Continued PCs, the new Surface Hub and the Surface Pro with LTE, and you begin to see a future where our devices, apps, and services all sync and talk to each other. We simply need to remind Microsoft to consummate its ain tasks.

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