How Important is Tasks Support in Windows Phone 7?

[Jason Dunn]

<p>The issue of Tasks is a funny one: people tend to either use them heavily, wish they were disciplined enough to use them heavily, or not care at all about them. The complete lack of Tasks support in Windows Phone 7 causes some people immense frustration, while others could care less. I'm trying to get a handle on how damaging the lack of Tasks support is to the Windows Phone 7 platform, so do me a favour and vote in this survey.</p><p><script charset="utf-8" src="http://static.polldaddy.com/p/5034287.js" type="text/javascript"></script></p><noscript> &amp;lt;a href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/5034287/" mce_href="http://polldaddy.com/poll/5034287/"&amp;gt;How Important Are Tasks For You?&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;span style="font-size:9px;" mce_style="font-size:9px;"&amp;gt;&amp;lt;a href="http://polldaddy.com/features-surveys/" mce_href="http://polldaddy.com/features-surveys/"&amp;gt;Market Research&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;&amp;lt;/span&amp;gt; </noscript>

[paschott]

Definitely fall on the "Important" side, especially if we could get some reminders going and upcoming or even overdue tasks displayed somewhere. While I don't think it's necessarily critical to the success of the platform, it would be useful for those of us who want a GTD-type system with notifications on next actions. Short of calendar events, we don't really have much right now.

[fredkelk]

Agree with last poster that having tasks for me is somewhat important. I have found apps that can work but I missed the tasks feature. What really was the deal breaker for me though was the missing voice command 6.5 has. I drive too much to not have my phone announce calls and texts so I gave up on WP7 and went back to my old 6.5 which is much more a work phone, even for a retired person, than a toy to play games and music on.

[horray]

I was a loyal supporter of PPC & Windows Mobile user for years and migrated to iOS before I went back to WP7 simply because of the Task integration. Unfortunately I bought WP7 phone assuming Task will be a standard for Windows smartphones. Unfortunately I was hugely disappointed.

Task is a very important function for my daily work and the absent of it is something which I deeply missed. So for me, it is critical and I don't want to pay money for it!

[virain]

I really depend on Tasks, so I' va adopted OneNote to replace this very important feature

[stlbud]

I rarely use tasks. Instead I put deadlines in calendar events. Outlook does a better job of showing calendar events. Tasks get part of a line and a red flag that does nothing to indicate urgency.

[buzzard]

I've used tasks for years and depend on audible reminders appearing on the screen of my device. With WP7 I have to use the calendar and make a task into an appointment in order to get a audible popup reminder. Even with that I can only "snooze" it for 5 minutes which is totally useless. I also started using ToodleDo online and To-Do List on the WP7. They provide a nice listing of tasks but all I get is an email each day listing outstanding tasks. Cute but not even close to the old Windows Mobile tasks with reminders that got me off my ass to complete them or to remind me again in an hour if I was busy.

[Jason Dunn]

Even with that I can only "snooze" it for 5 minutes which is totally useless.

This is one of my #1 complaints about Windows Phone 7 right now. This drives me nuts and I hope Microsoft improves it!

[Eriq Cook]

Thanks for posting this, Jason. This was one of the many reasons I ditched WP7 after less than a month (and went to Blackberry). "What in the world were the programmers thinking?" is all I can ask. SLICK, fast interface, but too dumbed-down to use as a "smartphone", compared to Windows Mobile 6 and earlier.


Unrelated to this specific issue, but also on my long list of complaints about WP7:

Reminder snooze options - 5 minutes ONLY is ridiculous
NO category support (even Blackberry has this. This is very important to me as well, but guess Microsoft doesn't think people need this feature any more)
Inability to add more than one upcoming calendar appointment on the Home screen. Drove me nuts not being able to see a quick glance of (most of) day from the home screen.
Address book entries don't appear in the dialer as you dial--in other words, if you start to dial (702) 895.....and a contact entry with that number is already exist in the phone, it doesn't appear. You must now type the entire number to dial it. Even BASIC phones today have the feature that allow you to simply select an address book entry that's already in the phone after typing in the first 2+ numbers.
No tethering support
Hidden signal meter
No unified Inbox
Jason, I'm sure you've heard from me enough about the lack of dedicated hardware buttons :D With Microsoft's new strict rules about physical buttons on WP7 devices, not being able to quickly end a phone call (or get to the home screen quickly) without staring at screen for "End Call" button drove me nuts as well.

These along with lack of basic Task support was enough to drive me away from Windows Phone. And I doubt Microsoft will ever get it enough to re-introduce these features. :confused:

[Jason Dunn]

Unrelated to this specific issue, but also on my long list of complaints about WP7...

That's quite a list - but all very valid missing features that I'm sure impact a lot of people. I hope at least a few of them will get crossed off the list with the Mango update!

[petevick]

Although I don't use Tasks a lot personally, we heard all the complaints, and wrote APPA Tasks to address the situation.
Application development is still being driven by user requests, and Mango will enhance its functionality.
More details on APPA Tasks can be found here (http://appamundi.com/products/tasks/)

[Don Tolson]

Tasks / To Do's are critically important to me. So much so, I've been cruising the Marketplace looking for 3rd party apps which provide the functionality. There are only a few that integrate into the Outlook Exchange (also critically important to me) and while good, they have a few 'bugs' yet to be ironed out.

I would REALLY have preferred to have this directly integrated into the WP7 interface natively.

[Don Tolson]

Although I don't use Tasks a lot personally, we heard all the complaints, and wrote APPA Tasks to address the situation.
Application development is still being driven by user requests, and Mango will enhance its functionality.
More details on APPA Tasks can be found here (http://appamundi.com/products/tasks/)

... and this works quite well, indeed! Even connecting with Exchange 2003 servers. (Thanks Pete).

BTW Pete.. the latest version (1.10) seems to have problems updating the Live Tile....

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Eriq's nailed it, but they aren't just WP7 problems, they're also Android and iOS problems. I know for Android some of the issues can be solved with an app (not so sure about iOS), but it is annoying to need external apps to solve what used to exist in earlier phones. Can we have the best of both worlds please?

[Fritzly]

Eriq's nailed it, but they aren't just WP7 problems, they're also Android and iOS problems. I know for Android some of the issues can be solved with an app (not so sure about iOS), but it is annoying to need external apps to solve what used to exist in earlier phones. Can we have the best of both worlds please?

Sure you can!
For the time being, and waiting to see what the future will offer, I bought back a HD2 on Ebay and installed Wm 6.5.3 on it........

I really miss WP7 interface but I have all my needed functionalities back...........

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Sure you can!
For the time being, and waiting to see what the future will offer, I bought back a HD2 on Ebay and installed Wm 6.5.3 on it........

I really miss WP7 interface but I have all my needed functionalities back...........

Carrying two phones is not having the best of both worlds. It's having the best and worst of both worlds; ie, two worlds, both their good and bad.

[Richard76]

Bottom line.....have not been able to migrate to WP7 due to lack of tasks support and direct Outlook sync. Had to buy my son a Sammy Focus just so I could have some "play time" with WP7!

[Pony99CA]

The complete lack of Tasks support in Windows Phone 7 causes some people immense frustration, while others could care less.
I use Tasks quite extensively, so I voted "Important".


Unrelated to this specific issue, but also on my long list of complaints about WP7:

Reminder snooze options - 5 minutes ONLY is ridiculous
NO category support (even Blackberry has this. This is very important to me as well, but guess Microsoft doesn't think people need this feature any more)
Inability to add more than one upcoming calendar appointment on the Home screen. Drove me nuts not being able to see a quick glance of (most of) day from the home screen.
Address book entries don't appear in the dialer as you dial--in other words, if you start to dial (702) 895.....and a contact entry with that number is already exist in the phone, it doesn't appear. You must now type the entire number to dial it. Even BASIC phones today have the feature that allow you to simply select an address book entry that's already in the phone after typing in the first 2+ numbers.
No tethering support
Hidden signal meter
No unified Inbox

Wow, WP7 sounds worse than I thought. I don't care much about a unified Inbox (I like seeing where E-mail was sent to) and I rarely look at the signal strength meter, but those others are HUGE steps backward from Windows Mobile.

In fact, the "dial-by-name/number" feature was one that I used to brag about in Windows Mobile. Maybe WP7 wasn't intended for use on telephones. :D

And let's not forget the ability to sync with Outlook (http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f396/windows-phone-7-outlook-sync-forgotten-scenario-101662.html) without needing an Exchange server. :rolleyes:

Steve

P.S. Jason, the language pedant in me has to point out that it's "could not care less". If you "could care less", it means that it's more important than something. :)

[Phillip Dyson]

I voted Important even though I'm not using a WP7 device. And other are right. None of the major platforms support tasks out of the box.

I'm currently using Due Today by Lakeridge Software and PocketInformant on my Nexus One. Both sync with the service Toodleedo.

So far this has worked well for me. They both have GTD features built in.

[Fritzly]

I voted Important even though I'm not using a WP7 device. And other are right. None of the major platforms support tasks out of the box.


Actually Microsoft WM does....... :-)

[Phillip Dyson]

Actually Microsoft WM does....... :-)


I said major platforms. :)

[Fritzly]

I said major platforms. :)

LOL..... Best post of the day...... :-)

[Phillip Dyson]

I think I killed the thread... sorry. :o