Wunderlist 3 Lays The Foundation For A New Platform
Wunderlist is all grown up! The third major version of this popular list-making, list-sharing, and now list-collecting, service is bringing long-awaited features to its faithful followers. But underlying all of these is a new platform that could evolve Wunderlist to become something beyond the humble todo list management app that it was when it started years ago.
Wunderlist started out like any other productivity tool, something that lets you get things done. It's still good at that, mind you, and this major update has made it even better. But Wunderlist is now growing beyond that task-centric paradigm into something more all-embracing, generic, and perhaps even ambiguous. Wunderlist wants to become the home of the world's lists.
To accomplish that, however, some things had to change. First and foremost, it had to get its backend in tip-top shape. It can't remain the slow, unreliable, and outdated engine that it once was. 6Wunderkinder, the brains and muscles behind Wunderlist, did just that, and the effects are palpable. First, now you can quickly sync your lists across all associated devices in almost real time speeds. Don't believe it? How about a game of todo list ping pong?
But this is just the beginning. The changes that Wunderlist started has greater ramifications across its entire ecosystem. It lays the groundwork for quicker iteration and release of new features. It also becomes the foundation for adding new services and integrating Wunderlist into other apps and services. In other words, a platform. The first fruit of that platform is the new Public Lists feature which lets you put your own list up in the Web, with its own cozy web page, for the whole world to see, copy, share, and, if possible, collaborate. You can imagine a growing social hub of list-obsessed netizens, tweeting left and right about some uber interesting collection of links, names, ideas, and whatnot. Think of it like Pinterest, except for lists.
What can users, present and future, look forward to in this new Wunderlist platform? The most immediate stated goal is to actually take it multi-platform, which in this case, means Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8. Native apps, not just the web version. Mentioned in passing, but perhaps more interesting to those living outside of Microsoft's platforms, is upcoming integration with favorite apps. Many productivity tools, even those that are platforms too, are like tropical islands, beautiful but isolated. Hopefully this planned integration means that your todos (yes you can still use Wunderlist for todo lists) will magically appear in, say, your calendar. Hopefully as well, it won't take 6Wunderkinder another 10 months, which is how long they took from version 2 to version 3, to strike their own todos off their list.
SOURCE: Wunderlist