Google is Finally Making a Standalone Tasks App

Google has finally admitted that a proper suite of office productivity apps needs to include Tasks. Alongside the launch of the new Gmail, the company is announcing integration with Google Tasks. In Gmail, you’ll be able to drag emails over to the Tasks section of the web app to create a new to-do item based on that email.

But, blessedly, Google is finally releasing separate Google Tasks apps for both iPhone and Android. Before now, using Google Tasks has involved a confusing mess of inputs and outputs: a melange of Google Keep, Google Assistant, and Google Calendar all either accepted or showed you tasks, but getting a simple, single list of them was nigh-impossible.

As you can see in the screenshot above, Google Tasks on Android looks pretty bare-bones. We don’t know much more than what we can see above yet, but what we can see above is the ability to nest tasks, have them associated with emails, and assign due dates. No word on whether more robust to-do app features like setting priorities, categories, tags, or anything else will be supported.

Me: ugh sometimes making a reminder or Todo feels like I'm chucking it into an endless, inscrutable void you cannot see and from whence nothing ever emerges

Google: we have designed our entire tasks system around this concept.
— Dieter Bohn (@backlon) December 24, 2017

But the mere existence of the app is a sign Google might be moving towards a more coherent and directed office app strategy. Every other new feature introduced in today’s Gmail redesign leans in that same direction too. At the very least, Google’s office app offerings are now on par with the core apps that were included with the original Palm Pilot in 1997. Progress!

We’ll update with more thoughts once we’ve had a chance to try out the app ourselves.