Wonder What’s Happening With Wunderlist? Wonder No More

When Microsoft bought Wunderlist, the company announced that the app would eventually be shut down and that To-Do would take its place. But, as time passed, Microsoft said that Wunderlist would live-on a bit longer but that the plan was to still transition over to To-Do when the app was ready.

As I have often wondered out loud, the transition is taking a lot longer than many anticipated, the messaging about the future of Wunderlist is confusing, and many users didn’t know what to expect or when Wunderlist will actually be shut down. Thanks to a few tweets by Christian Reber, translated by drwindows.de, we now have a better understanding of what happened behind the scenes but still no timeline for the app being turned off.

According to his tweets, the initial plan was to introduce To-Do and stop development of Wunderlist but that hasn’t gone according to plan. The issue? Wunderlist API runs on AWS and is in the process of being ported to Azure but since it needs to include Exchange/Office integration, this port is taking much longer than initially expected.

The project as it stands right now is in some sort of migration-hell that has essentially destroyed the fan-base for Wunderlist thanks to missed deadlines and with To-Do being half-baked; Microsoft has royally botched this acquisition and transition between platforms.

When I was in graduate school, I had a professor tell me that the best way to determine the true length of an IT project is to take your best estimate and multiply it by two. In this case, the one year anniversary of To-Do happens in about four weeks which means we may have another year of this waffling between the two services.

While we wait for Microsoft to get its act together and add features to To-Do that give it parity to other popular task apps, the light is slowly fading on the ability to salvage any of the momentum from acquiring Wunderlist when To-Do is finally ready.

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Conversation 45 comments

  • wolters

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 4:59 pm

    <p>Thanks for the update. I'm still chugging along with To-Do but I really, REALLY need the sharing options and for it to show up on Google Calendar. </p>

  • rmlounsbury

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 5:02 pm

    <p>If Microsoft would add multiple accounts to To-Do then I'd be fine with the platform. However, right now I'd have to maintain all my To-Do lists in one account without the ability to toggle between personal and work. Not horrible but I like to keep my two worlds as separate as possible. </p>

    • wolters

      Premium Member
      20 March, 2018 - 6:13 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#254882"><em>In reply to rmlounsbury:</em></a></blockquote><p>This!!! Now that To-Do is a part of Office 365 E1, I can't even use it if I have to log out and back in. </p>

  • StudBen

    20 March, 2018 - 5:02 pm

    <p>Thanks I had posted this very question in Ask Paul this past week. Not very encouraging to hear. </p>

  • Wolfbyte

    20 March, 2018 - 5:06 pm

    <p>So this has been Skype all over again?</p>

  • Mark from CO

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 5:11 pm

    <p>Paul:</p><p><br></p><p>Are you really surprised? This seems the norm when it comes to Microsoft and the integration of its acquisitions. This is also, in part, why Microsoft is in the competitive hell position it finds itself.</p><p><br></p><p>Mark from CO</p>

    • slartybartmark

      20 March, 2018 - 5:42 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#254887"><em>In reply to Mark from CO:</em></a></blockquote><p>Ron from AZ:</p><p>Brad wrote this. :)</p>

  • Jim Lewis

    20 March, 2018 - 5:19 pm

    <p>I agree 100% – why Microsoft cannot offer MS ToDo integration with Cortana in the meantime is another baffler that's turning people away, too.</p>

  • lhavenst

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 5:26 pm

    <p>The multiply best estimate by two is the Scotty Formula. Scotty stated that in the StarTrek original series. He also said hitting the estimated time makes you look like a genius.</p>

    • jimchamplin

      Premium Member
      20 March, 2018 - 7:05 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#254893"><em>In reply to lhavenst:</em></a></blockquote><p>In “Star Trek 3” it had expanded to a factor of four!</p>

  • djross95

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 5:34 pm

    <p>Yes another MS software disaster in the making. I have my own personal solution for this dilemma. While I use many MS apps on my Android phone, I've migrated over to Google Keep. It works just fine and is continually being enhanced by its maker. </p>

  • DaveHelps

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 5:35 pm

    <p>There’s a painful irony in the fact that integrating with Exchange and Office is the hard part about moving to Azure.</p>

    • stmorr82zw5zml

      Premium Member
      20 March, 2018 - 11:07 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#254895"><em>In reply to DaveHelps:</em></a></blockquote><p>The true irony is that a project to migrate a todo list app has been mismanaged and missed deadlines. Maybe they should've used a todo app to manage the migration? ?</p>

  • RSAtkinson

    20 March, 2018 - 5:51 pm

    <p>We are sticking with Wunderlist until the very end. It just plain works for our needs. </p>

    • MixedFarmer75

      Premium Member
      20 March, 2018 - 10:08 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#254897"><em>In reply to RSAtkinson:</em></a></blockquote><p>I am doing the same. Have had no reason to switch. </p>

  • jimchamplin

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 6:58 pm

    <p>“<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Microsoft royally botches all acquisitions and transitions between platforms.”</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">FTFY, Brad ;)</span></p>

    • Brad Sams

      Premium Member
      21 March, 2018 - 7:57 am

      <blockquote><a href="#254914"><em>In reply to jimchamplin:</em></a></blockquote><p>:(</p>

  • BigM72

    20 March, 2018 - 7:26 pm

    <p>If Wunderlist was being deprecated and ToDo built up, why are they even porting Wunderlist at all?</p><p>Just natively build ToDo on Azure?</p><p><br></p><p>But if they are building ToDo what was the point of acquiring Wunderlist at all? Like Sunrise, the calendar app they bought and killed, integrations are the point plus the brand.</p><p><br></p><p>Why couldn't they not bother at all with ToDo and just use Wunderlist and slowly migrate it to Azure from AWS?</p><p><br></p><p>None of this makes any sense to me?</p>

  • Roger Ramjet

    20 March, 2018 - 7:45 pm

    <p>By now Microsoft must have integrated countless new products or acquisitions into Exchange/Office. You would think therefore they would have it nailed down enough that it would not be so bad that they kill two entities with one stone, delighting the competition, therefore. I mean who could ask for better? A take out of both the promising startup, and the offering from the behemoth in 1 Dilbert sequence. </p>

  • WmPitcher

    20 March, 2018 - 7:55 pm

    <p>Why would Wunderlist be fading? I will continue to keenly use it until they take it away from me.</p>

  • beatnixxx

    Premium Member
    20 March, 2018 - 11:05 pm

    <p>After a year of waiting I finally chucked Wunderlist &amp; To-do &amp; went for Todoist. It's not perfect but good enough, and since Cortana and IFTTT integration now is an option, I can use it across devices, Cortana, &amp; Alexa. </p><p><br></p><p>IIn 1999 I had a palm pilot with perfect Calendar, Contact, and Tasks integration (albeit without wireless sync). It feels like we've gone backward even though the devices are exponentially more powerful. More and more I'm just moving on to non-MS solutions which is a shame, because I'm a long time MS professional. </p>

    • jchampeau

      Premium Member
      21 March, 2018 - 11:04 am

      <blockquote><a href="#254977"><em>In reply to beatnixxx:</em></a></blockquote><p>Seriously. I had a Palm V, an HP Jornada, and then a Dell Axim before being issued a Palm Treo for work. All of those devices had very specific and defined capabilities and for the most part, they just worked. I love technology and innovation but sometimes long for simplicity.</p>

  • will

    Premium Member
    21 March, 2018 - 12:27 am

    <p>What a colossal (mess) up! It feels like the same thing happened with Sunrise. A great calendar app with lots of potential and then Microsoft bought it to fill in gaps for Outlook. The idea looked good but there is nothing remotely awesome or great about the current Outlook iOS calendar. It works, yes, but that’s it. </p><p><br></p><p>Todo is a complete joke and the team that has been working on it keeps trolling for users to submit “feature requests “ but they have not implemented anything remotely big. Just always “hey we found some bugs and improved the performance for you!” </p><p><br></p><p>Sorry but Microsoft some of your apps just plain suck. Period. </p>

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    21 March, 2018 - 1:16 am

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    • X911ty12

      21 March, 2018 - 11:05 am

      <blockquote><a href="#255005"><em>In reply to Maui:</em></a></blockquote><p><br></p><p>This comment section is garbage. Can't block or report this crap.</p>

  • IanYates82

    Premium Member
    21 March, 2018 - 5:26 am

    <p>I still use wunderlist daily. Not because I think it's great, just happened to be what I started using. </p><p>Cortana uses it and the MS launcher on android uses it. Neither, last I checked, knew about the new to do. </p><p><br></p><p>It shares lists and works pretty well. The UWP app could use some love as it takes a crazy long time to refresh. Otherwise it's fine. </p><p><br></p><p>I still don't understand why they acquired wunderlist to just poorly shut it down for a half built replacement. </p>

  • Bart

    Premium Member
    21 March, 2018 - 5:43 am

    <p>But as they are still porting Wunderlist to Azure, will MS actually kill it? Still no definite word on that, right? </p>

  • rameshthanikodi

    21 March, 2018 - 6:00 am

    <p>and the net effect of this will be, yet again, the burning into the ground of their acquisitions.</p>

  • nbplopes

    21 March, 2018 - 6:04 am

    <p>I find it hard to believe this justification considering a company like MS. I mean, they have built Teams meanwhile and could not port a much simpler app from AWS to Azure?</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • Pierre Masse

    21 March, 2018 - 6:48 am

    <p>I think it's good news. It seems that somebody is actually working on that stuff. You see Microsoft? A little information do no harm.</p>

  • RM

    21 March, 2018 - 7:42 am

    <p>They should probably just keep and develop Wunderlist for consumers and smb's. They should also keep and develop To-Do for businesses. Just like the are doing with Skype and Teams. Hopefully Skype and Teams will be developed with the same tech, features, and design where possible, just like a Wunderlist and To-Do should be. Then people can easily use both and hopefully even exchange/interact between both as some point. But for marketing purposes, they should keep the Wunderlist app.</p>

  • Davor Radman

    21 March, 2018 - 11:02 am

    <p>Google Keep FTW :)</p><p>Seriouslly, for normal regular people (as much as to-do app people can be called normal) on android, why would anyone consider anything other then keep?</p><p><br></p><p>I know there are more feature rich apps and services, but of the people using to-do apps, I wager a very small % need anything over keep.</p>

    • conan007

      21 March, 2018 - 11:56 am

      <blockquote><a href="#255097"><em>In reply to Markiz von Schnitzel:</em></a></blockquote><p>Google Keep as I understand is a notes app, like OneNote, Evernote, Notes by Apple… Sure you can use a notes app to make a to-do list but they are not the same thing. Google has a to-do app/service called Google Tasks.</p>

  • ponsaelius

    21 March, 2018 - 1:22 pm

    <p>Well this is another element of a product that Microsoft haven't got right. Skype lost the IM wars when Microsoft killed messenger before it had a clear IM strategy. Now Skype struggles on rather aimlessly. Sunrise was a great calendar app. Cancelled in favour of a less functional calendar in Outlook. (As an aside I would comment the standalone calendar in Windowsphone was pretty good too). Now we have Wunderlist. Supposedly cancelled, or not, in favour of a ToDo app that not even Cortana plays well with.</p><p><br></p><p>Google maybe the king of creating IM platforms but Microsoft's many ways of setting reminders and todos is now moving in that direction.</p>

  • Mike Brady

    21 March, 2018 - 1:53 pm

    <p>I finally gave up and started going back to a notebook with real paper in it.</p>

  • rvanallen

    Premium Member
    21 March, 2018 - 2:01 pm

    <p>Wunderlist is still my daily go-to app across multiple platforms. About 6-months ago thought I'd migrate over to Microsoft ToDo world. Bad bad. Within a day, went running back to Wunderlist and have not looked back since. Works very nice. Will be sad if the up-and-coming replacement ToDo isn't as least as fluid. Would be even happier if Wunderlist simply gets rebranded with the MS Logo and keeps the underlying code and workforce in place. </p><p><br></p><p>Sure, this is a simple application and others have more features. Sometimes less is more.</p>

  • BMcDonald

    21 March, 2018 - 2:17 pm

    <p>After using Wunderlist for slightly less than 2 years – I dropped it like a stone as soon as I found out the end was near and moved everything to ToDoist.</p><p><br></p><p>Will not be moving back.</p><p><br></p><p>B</p>

  • FactoryOptimizr

    21 March, 2018 - 11:46 pm

    <p>"Estimate and triple" is the software development rule of thumb. This may take a while!</p>

  • gerardt

    Premium Member
    22 March, 2018 - 12:41 pm

    <p>Still use Wunderlist to this day and love it. Can't say that I have tried Microsoft ToDo because at this point I have no compelling reason to switch.</p>

  • Omen_20

    22 March, 2018 - 2:20 pm

    <p>Makes me glad they didn't buy TickTick which is my preferred todo list. Works great on my Android phone and as a web panel in Vivaldi on desktop.</p>

  • dchicoine

    23 March, 2018 - 11:21 am

    <p>To-Do is so plain vanilla with no great features so I continue using Wunderlist, which is a great product. Please Microsoft, do as well as Wunderlist does with To-Do before you kill it, otherwise you will continue to lose great users.</p>

  • phgarcia

    25 March, 2018 - 8:06 pm

    <p>It seems that most of the time of the team is spent in writing fake reviews for the Windows Store app. It jumped from a rating of 3 stars to close to 5 stars, with multiple users writing a good review every single day with generic comments. The number of people writing reviews has ballooned, so as the rating of the app. </p>

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