Microsoft To-Do, which will eventually replace Wunderlist, is getting a few new features. Well, it will eventually get new features as Microsoft has indicated that work has begun on adding new functionality to the bare-bones task-management application.

The UserVoice page for To-Do was updated a few weeks ago to indicate that the company is now developing sub-tasks and shared lists. For those that use the app, this is good news, but if Microsoft wants to truly grab market share in this area, they need to speed up the development ten-fold.

Wunderlist, which the company said was going away only to later backtrack and extend the life of the app, was acquired by the company a few years ago and has been sitting somewhat-idle while To-Do is slowly brought up to speed. And that’s my main issue here, Microsoft has been moving too slow on the development of this application and clearly has indicated, by its actions, that this is not a priority for the company.

Other third-party apps, like Todoist and Any.Do have blown past what To-Do offers and unless Microsoft tosses To-Do some additional dev resources, it will take years to catch-up. Even Wunderlist, despite being on ‘death-watch’, has more features than To-Do.

Further, Wunderlist is a confusing story because even though Microsoft said it would be moving away from the app, the app was updated four times in the last year. For any new user looking to dive into a to-do style app, using Wunderlist is foolish as you know that it has a limited shelf-life and To-Do is half-baked compared to the other options which have free variants.

If To-Do would pick up the development pace, it could be a serious alternative to the now established players as the advantages are significant; baked into Outlook, Cortana, and every other Microsoft service. But at the current rate of development, by the time it offers features comparable to other services and even Wunderlist, it will be 2025.

Thanks for the tip Merlin!

Tagged with To-Do