- Google Tasks is now part of Google Calendar on Android
- It follows the web apps merging last year
- Google Tasks may eventually be retired as a standalone app
Google has certainly never been afraid of killing off apps and products it’s not that interested in any more (see Killed by Google for details), and it appears that Google Tasks could be the next app on the chopping block.
The Google Tasks app is now available inside Google Calendar for Android, Google has announced (via 9to5Google). Google is positioning this as a benefit – but are we wrong to be a little worried about the future of the standalone Google Tasks app?
Perhaps not, given Google’s history with merging and dropping products, and the way that Google Tasks has been slowly finding its way into other apps – not just Google Calendar, but also Gmail and the Google Assistant.
The Android update follows the addition of Google Tasks to Google Calendar on the web, which happened last year. “This update makes it easier for users to stay on top of and organize their tasks, especially while on the go,” Google says.
The future of Google Tasks
There’s no indication that Google Tasks is going to be killed off in the very near future, and we’re doing a little bit of reading between the lines here. It’s still available for Android and iOS, in addition to being available on the web.
However, as noted above, the old Google Tasks website portal now takes you to Google Calendar instead. There’s a toggle switch up in the top-right corner that lets you switch between seeing your schedule and seeing your to-do lists.
It makes sense for your tasks to be inside your calendar – most of them will probably have a due date, after all – but it would be a shame if Google were to get rid of the separate Google Tasks app entirely. Sometimes less is more, and part of the appeal of Google Tasks is its simple, uncluttered interface.
We’ll have to wait and see what Google’s next move is, but we hope Google Tasks sticks around for many years to come. It does at least seem to still have more life in it as an independent app than Google Fit does.