Despite the rise of digital calendars, keeping track of what’s happening in a day can be tough. There’s your to-do list, your Facebook events and meetings scheduled by email, let alone your personal calendar.
With the latest update to its Outlook apps for iOS and Android, Microsoft is gathering data from all those sources to give you a full picture of your day in one spot. The new “Calendar Apps” let users sync events and reminders to the Outlook calendar, integrating functions from Sunrise, which Microsoft acquired last year.
At launch, users can add events from Facebook and reminders from Evernote and Wunderlist (another Microsoft acquisition) to their calendars.
With the Facebook integration, invites from friends show up alongside other events so users can easily check availability. Users can even accept or decline straight from the Outlook app.
Evernote notes with reminders also show up on your calendar. Users can see the first few lines of a note from within the Outlook app to see what that reminder was about, and can tap it to be taken to the note for more info.
Wunderlist’s integration is the most straightforward, putting todos with due dates on the calendar. While you can easily jump to the app from Outlook, you can’t check it off without diving into Wunderlist. Since Microsoft owns the todo list app, the extra step to clear the item seems like a strange omission.
Calendar Apps come as Microsoft prepares to discontinue Sunrise, rolling its features into the main Outlook app.
Microsoft will expand the selection of Calendar Apps, with Skype and OneNote integrations in the works. The company is also looking for suggestions. Users can request other integrations by going to the Help & Support section of the Setting screen in the app to suggest a new Calendar App.
