Wunderlist: A must-have app

If you’re the type of person with a lot going on, it can be hard to remember everything you need to get done. There are, of course, many methods for accomplishing this, such as the classic notepad, daily planner, etc. All these are fairly proven methods, but they fail to address one simple question: What happens if you don’t have the planner on you? The obvious answer to this is to use the device everyone carries everywhere; and particularly for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad users; there is a new contender on the App Store known as Wunderlist.

The concept of Wunderlist is simple enough. As interfaces are concerned, it isn’t terribly dissimilar from the daily planners many students already use. This familiarity can make for a simple transition from analog to digital form. The real appeal of Wunderlist, however, is (as in many apps these days) cloud sync. Wunderlist allows you to organize to-do lists by category, and wirelessly sync them automatically between the mobile version, as well as the free desktop client available for Mac and Windows.

While Wunderlist has a very appealing and intuitive interface, there is a glaring and somewhat inexplicable flaw in the version available as of this writing. Where are the push notifications?  For those not versed in iPhone, push notifications are the Apple notification system of alerting the user with tones, badges, and dialogs that pop up on the screen. These often coincide with new messages, alarms, calendar appointments, etc.

These notifications are conspicuously absent from Wunderlist. The purpose of the app is to manage your tasks in a way superior to analog solutions such as notepads and planners. However, the lack of notifications leaves the app failing to address one of the major flaws of the old systems, which is that there is nothing to actively remind you to look at your planner. This flaw in Wunderlist is very easy to fix, as push notifications are easily added to apps through Apple’s development software. Hopefully the developer, Wunderkinder, will notice this flaw (as pointed out in many App Store customer reviews), and address it in a future release.

While the absence of push notifications is glaring, it doesn’t so much sully the app, as merely keep it just short of greatness. It is still a very elegant and intuitive way to manage your daily tasks, and if you can remember to check the app, you will find it useful.

Both the desktop and iPhone versions of Wunderlists are free, and there is a version for Google’s Android OS in the works.

Posted by JeffSterling on Feb 28 2011. Filed under Leisure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.