Wunderlist Chief Design Officer leaves for Microsoft's Outlook team

By Dan Thorp-Lancaster
last updated

Chief Design Officer for Wunderlist, Benedikt Lehnert, has announced that he is leaving the team behind the productivity app to join the Outlook team at Microsoft. Specifically, Lehnert will take on the roll of Director of Product Design for Outlook on iOS, Android and Mac.

From Lehnert:

In August, I'll be joining the Outlook team to work on the next generation email and calendar service. I'll be leading the product design teams for Outlook on iOS, Android and the Mac, and spend my time in New York, San Francisco and Redmond. The remarkable worldwide footprint and relevance of Outlook combined with a strong new focus on delivering excellent experiences across all platforms is going to be a big and exciting challenge. The team has done an amazing job so far, and I can't wait to share the things we are working on.

Just over a year ago, Microsoft acquired 6Wunderkinder — the company behind Wunderlist — for a price reported to land somewhere between $100 and $200 million.

Dan Thorp-Lancaster
Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl. 

42 Comments
  • The iOS/Android Outlook experience will get even better.  Awesome!
  • Nutella approves this message..
  • I will likely never see the fruits of this guy's labor. Those OS's blow.
  • Regardless of your opinion of iOS and Android, the Outlook app experience is miles better on iPhone than it is on Windows Mobile and it looks like it's only going to get better.
  • So your opinion means more than mine? Lol... Every time I have to use my work iPhone I get pissed. Stupid one-button POS.
  • Sad life. 
  • Your opinion>everyone else's opinion... is what you just said
  • iOS and Android but F*ck W10M right Microsoft?! We don't need any of your first party apps on here! Whoever is running the show is seriously dumb as f*ck
  • Explains why there has been radio silence on the Wunderlist UWP app for mobile we've been asking about for months, I guess.
  • Maybe, though there should be at least some progress regardless. Wunderlist is still feels like just a separate 3rd-party app on Windows without much integration and cross-talk to other MS apps which could have some progress even a little bit earlier. Example: Wunderlist integration at least on OneNote and Cortana. These two are the start but still zero news about Wunderlist integration (unless I missed something). Heck, even Wunderlist should be pre-included with Windows 10 since task management app is can be very useful for any type of user. Remember when Windows Phone have built-in Task in Calendar?
  • They tweeted recently that they are working on a major app update.. that's why there haven't been any news or updates in sometime.  I'm guessing they are trying to integrate it into the Microsoft ecosystem.
  • I wonder what this means, if anything for W10 Mobile UWA design.
  • They posted they're working on a major app update which is why there's been a delay: https://support.wunderlist.com/customer/portal/questions/15938539-window...  (look at Apr 6)
  • Wunderlist's live tile doesn't work on Windows 10 Mobile and never has.  They say they've been "working on it" for seven months.  No change.
  • This^^^^^
    How hard can it be to make live tiles work ffs, they worked on 8.1
  • Maybe this wunderlst guy will learn how to do it at Outlook.
  • Outlook's live tile was crippled with W10M, too.
  • Live Tiles in general seem crippled on W10M.
  • It doesn't have to take switch team to realize how to use Live Tile. Wunderlist already does this, only it doesn't work on default Live Tile for whatever unknown reason. It feels like there is still this management and disconnect issues among MS teams.
  • Yeah it's pretty disappointing on Mobile. They could never get the dynamic shared list/Live Tile to work properly either. Gave up on it because they apparently did as well.
  • Apparently a brand new app is coming (look at Apr 6 post from the rep): https://support.wunderlist.com/customer/portal/questions/15938539-window...
  • Speaking of Wunderlist, what happened to their app on Mobile? It still isn't a W10M native app.
  • Todoist has been FAR better all-up for yonks, was sad when MS bought WL instead of it*... Then again, given MS's very patchy record with making a success out of co's/products it buys, maybe it's for the best. *AFAICT Todoist has not been looking to sell
  • Ok, "yonks" for (I assume) "years" is a pretty great autocorrect! I'm trying Todoist, but it seems like you need premium for all the useful features, like reminders - what's a to-do app without it? And $30 per year is not nothing. And the W10 apps still don't have useful live tiles - they give you the numbers of tasks but not the list.
  • "Yonks" just means ages.... The cost per year is nothing to me*, for some people it's "a lot of money", me nothing. Once activated the featureset's larger than a paid WL*, & the UX is less garish & cleaner. And it suits my workflow by supporting a larger array of platforms/services/programs/apps etc. I like that its support for key combos is much more sophisticated too... And they've even beaten WL -a MS owned company- to a half decent UWP app...  (still only early days, but what they've started with is solid)   *can't recall what it converts to here *which is notably pricier here for me
  • No surprises there
  • They don't even mention W10M anymore, it's just iOS and Android. The shows been over for a while now.
  • This is always what bothers me with Microsoft, did they even aware of the existence of their own platform? Maybe the cause of issues why were having this because most MS employees don't even use them. I don't feel MS ver understand their own users regardless what their PR says. It even shows on Feedback Hub that some suggestions are basic things or very integral part that never polished, implemented, or improved. From small things to obviously big things.
  • I agree. I would be interested to see what percentage of MS employees were using a Windows 10 Mobile phone. I bet it is shockingly low! If Microsoft forced it's own employees to use W10M as their daily driver, we would be years ahead of where we are now. The sheer outcry from peers would have ensured that. Could it be that many of Microsoft's own developers care little about its issues because they are never impacted by them?
  • Just replace outlook tasks with Wunderlist.
  • Yeah! It makes too much sense not to even realize that. Though, Outlook task have deep integration on Outlook (well its part as a feature) and pretty advanced on its own.
  • I'm more interested in Outlook tasks being replaced with Wunderlist so the SharePoint tasks integration and features will be more robust. You can't set alerts/reminders in SharePoint with the default tools, and a Wunderlist task replacement or add-on would be a huge improvement. I have to create workflows to do what Wunderlist already does.
  • I need Wunderlist to sync with Outlook tasks. I need more functionality from Wunderlist, especially repeating the occurrence of a task based on when it is actually completed.
  • Wunderlist staffhave been saying a major update is due....theve been saying that for 12 months.
  • Wondering if whoever is taking over Wunderlist will be able to add "sort completed items" functionality? Been missing that for some time. It's hard to use it for repeating lists/tasks (like a grocery list) because you have to search through a bunch of unsorted items to uncheck something to put it back on the list - or add it yet again instead. I like the app, but really could use that feature and it's voted up pretty high on their feature request page.
  • I've been a long time Todoist user, few things I didn't like especially from thier CEO, went to Wunderlist, I can't comprehend why they still don't have a way to set tasks 'weekdays'. Unbelievable. I may go back to Todoist, they have a much deeper integration into Outlook and are moles and miles ahead, I've given feedback to the Wunderlist team via interview as I have Todoist team as I use GTD extensively. I give them until 1 week after official anniversary launch to bring functionality or I'm all over the GTDand productivity boards pushing Todoist
  • Wunderlist came roaring out of the gates for Windows Phone, with great change logs and then....Microsoft bought them *Tumbleweed*. Still has the same problems it's had for months and months now.  
  • Apparently they are working on a major new UWP app for Windows 10 that's why it's been quiet for so long (see Apr 6): https://support.wunderlist.com/customer/portal/questions/15938539-window...
  • Big issue is they charge for stuff you get for free elsewhere. Why even bother using it in that case?
  • so Windows platform will still have the horrid design as they do now? One more reason to switch to Android...
  • Certainly do what is right for you, but we're not going to abandon ship while our needs are met. Microsoft is developing mobile and there are updates and new apps most every week.
  • Does this mean an integration between Wunderlist and Outlook?