Microsoft is building a new to-do list app even though it already owns one

Back in May, MSPoweruser got a preview of Project Cheshire, a to-do list app that Microsoft has been building. Thurrott.com now reports that the tool has got a major update and is in private beta.

Since the first time it was revealed, Project Cheshire has arrived on Android and iOS, and is also available as a UWP app. As with other such tools, it lets you create multiple lists, set reminders and sync your to-dos across your devices.

That’s all well and good, but what I’d like to know is why Microsoft is busying itself building a new to-do app when it already owns a perfectly good one.

The company acquired Berlin-based task manager Wunderlist back in June 2015; the app reported 13 million users at the time and has since added more functionality and become available in the Windows

Store, while already supporting iOS, Android and Web users.

It also does a whole lot more than just list your tasks: You can share files, delegate items to people and discuss them and publish lists on the Web.Whether or not Wunderlist is perfect is a matter of debate, or rather, a matter of choice. There are tons of to-do apps out there and they suit different kinds of users with different needs. However, if Microsoft is going to throw its hat into the ring, it better be prepared to fight a difficult and bloody battle.

Most to-do apps on the market right now have been around for years and have gone through loads of changes, adding and removing features, streamlining interfaces, and fighting hard to woo users away from incumbents – Wunderlist included.

As Thurrott.com notes, It’s possible that Project Cheshire is the next phase of Wunderlist – but in that case, it seems like an awful lot of unnecessary reworking for a tool that already does what it says on the tin pretty well. Sure, there might be room for an app with a radically different approach, like this one for Android designed by a teenager, but Project Cheshire seems to be just another list manager at present.

Hopefully things will change by the time Project Cheshire is ready for public release. We’ve contacted Microsoft to learn more and will update this post if there’s a response.

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Pandora just completely redesigned its website

Pandora has been making some big moves lately as it prepares to enter the on-demand streaming business and take on the likes of Spotify. After unveiling a new logo, now the company has gone and completely redesigned its website – its first major redesign in five years.Like the new logo, the new site has a flatter, more modern design. The Now Playing view has a fixed player bar at the bottom, while album art is front and center, and you can scroll down for more information such as lyrics, tour dates, bios and more. You also now have a larger ‘My Stations’ view showing off the virtual radio channels with large artwork.

7 beautifully designed examples of fine art in fintech

Design isn’t just about making things look visually interesting – it’s also about shaping functionality.

Today there is a clear trend towards more attention to aesthetics and engaging user experience design.

However, traditionally conservative when it comes to communications and branding, financial companies aren’t known for flashy brands or affinity for design. The 2014 acquisition of the user experience design firm Adaptive Path by Capital One and the hiring of top design talent Daniel Makoski – founder of Google’s modular Project Ara phone project – was just the beginning of an industry trend.

With mobile and web platforms becoming the main stage for financial companies to interact with their customers, the design doctrines popular with tech startups started to become an influence.

Here are some of the best examples beautifully designed fintech apps and websites:
User-centric

The marriage of a bank and a user experience (UX) should not seem odd at all. With relatively little differentiation in product offerings, the customer’s experience has become the most tangible offering. This is clearly the case in technology-focused verticals such as consumer electronics and automobiles.

However, without a clear focus on improving the UX for the customer, financial institutions run the risk of their legacy systems pushing them further and further into internal obsolescence and external obscurity. And with this risk, opportunity emerges in the market. Enter Stripe.

Stripe’s latest update to their website has made quite a splash among designers with its use of color, composition and animation.

The company offers an online payment processing solutions and platforms to businesses and startups. Stripe, founded in 2010 has established itself as one of the go-to solutions in online payments.

Instinctive design

Many banking institutions provided their prospective and current customers a contemporary, responsive, content-rich, personalized, easy-to-use public web experience. But, when it comes to the post-login online banking experience, whether app- or web-based, the industry falls far short.

PayPal is the exception to the rule, having gone through many different iterations across evolving devices and screens for more than a decade.

The PayPal app is designed to bring order to the complexity of multiple currencies, bank accounts and transactions. It looks and feels intuitive, spacious and fast.

A human touch

Conducting banking business in a branch comes with certain inconveniences such as having to wait in line or only having access during regular banking hours. Here, however, the “human touch” manifests as active listening, responsiveness, and clear communication — all critical to the successful completion of one’s banking business.

ABN AMRO is a Dutch bank (and the one I use personally) providing financial services across the globe. To get to good designs and great features, the financial institution continuously validates hypothesis, thoughts, sketches and clickable prototypes with clients and then iterates these.

However, compared to fintech startups, the company has more IT legacy and internal procedures concerning security.

For example, the ability to search by debit or credit amount means clients have a more in-depth look into their accounts when it matters most. Or from a UX perspective, the company knows an easy login is in demand. But sometimes security wins out over design and accessibility.

This all means that, besides being a good creator, designers also need to be very good listeners in validating their ideas with customers, need to be capable to understand the complexity of the technical architecture, need to understand the importance of branding, and must be able to challenge other departments such as legal and compliance.

Go with your users

It’s no surprise that startups are lustfully eyeing the space under the belief that they can provide better financial services with lower fees than the big banks that dominate the sector today. One such startup has actually been around for what seems like the dawn of time – or at the least the dawn of fintech.

Founded in 2009, Square provides products in several types of payment and business services, including a credit card reader you can plug right into your smartphone.

Understanding that the market was always connected, with smartphone in hand, co-founders Jack Dorsey and Jim McKelvey used this information to bring a product to market that consumers actually wanted. If that’s not design thinking, I don’t know what it.

From chaos to order

Personal budgets. The bane of everyone’s existence, especially when kept on a traditional spreadsheet. Mint, however, is a game changer.

The a free personal finance management service acquired in 2009 by Intuit for $170 million. Not only does the platform let you create and manage budgets, check on credit scores and track goals, this is an app meant for everyone.While most platforms have functional limitations across the user interface, disjointedness between access platforms, and stale or irrelevant content that does little to inform consumers, Mint does a great job of being cohesive from website to app. Mint also does a wonderful job of marketing which leaves users satisfied and knowledgable; and bring clarity and efficiency to personal budgeting.

Put users in the driver’s seat

Transferring money shouldn’t be difficult, yet getting money from A to B can be a hassle – especially when it concerns currency conversion.

This is due to digital landscapes and needs as assessed by banking institutions – with the user experience frequently taking a backseat to aged designs and ineffective content.

This is not the case for peer-to-peer money transfer service TransferWise.A critical breakdown occurs when there’s a decision, conscious or otherwise, to prioritize internal processes ahead of simplicity, engagement and contextuality.Co-founded by Taavet Hinrikus – who previously worked on Skype as employee number one – the app is absolutely beautiful and easy to use. With large, unmistakable numbers and clear, efficient copy combined with a light aesthetic.

Intuitive design

Mobile is an incredibly important first step in a purely digital transformation, but organizations need to think outside of channels to really put the customer first.Just under three years old, Robin Hood has already made a name for itself as a disruptor of conventional brokerage.The app makes use of some interesting design choices, like swiping up to confirm an order placement. It shows their designers are exploring the mobile platform and leveraging more than what people might be used to.

The future of fintech

We are fans of convenience, expecting 24-hour access to our accounts no matter where we are. Yet the most useful and powerful cross-channel, digital tools rolled out in recent years were not introduced by banks, but by tech companies that understood how to use the internet, data analytics, and mobile technologies to solve consumers’ day-to-day problems.

Unfortunately, banks have a complex problem: Many of their practices and much of their data is heavily regulated.When banks can navigate the data and customer insight on-hand, they’ll be able to create better hyper-personalized user experiences. We’re already seeing this in the above companies – merging finance with beauty and ease of use.

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MacBook Pro cruises through the competition as Apple outsells all laptop manufacturers

The long-awaited refresh of the MacBook Pro lineup was welcomed with a heated backlash from the Mac community, but it seems the Cupertino giant will get the last laugh as new report suggests Apple has decisively outsold all competing laptop manufacturers.

In the short window of five days, the Big A has hustled more MacBook Pro devices than all XPS 13 and 15 models Dell has sold over the last 10 months, according to digital analytics firm Slice Intelligence. The iPhone-maker has also pushed four times as many units as Microsoft’s flashy new Surface Book.

Here’s a glimpse at the data Slice Intelligence has collected:

The revamped Pro model is still trailing behind Apple’s ultraportable 12-inch MacBook when it comes to total units sold, but the older model has been in retail for over 18 months.

Slice Intelligence further estimates that if the Cupertino giant continues selling its next generation flagship laptop at such pace, the new MacBook Pro is set to surpass the total sales of the 12-inch model in its first week of shipping.

Slice Intelligence accumulates its data by analyzing e-receipts from its 4.4 million online shoppers, taking into account only online sales in the US. While the data is likely not entirely accurate, it should serve as reasonably reliable yardstick for Apple’s sales performance.

Blowing the competition out of the water is nothing out of the ordinary for the Cupertino titan.

Last week, Apple clinched an all-time high market share profit, snatching an impressive 103.6 percent of all smartphone industry operating profits.

This terrifying homemade USB killer will instantly kill your computer

One of the basic rules of computer safety is that you don’t click on suspicious-looking links, and a lot of people are already well-aware of that. Another, relatively new one, is that you shouldn’t put random USB sticks in your computer.

Maybe you’ve heard of the USB killer, a $49 device that you plug in and fires a surge of power through your computer’s motherboard if it’s not isolated well enough — which is often the case.

DIY YouTuber Thomas Kim has shown it’s not that hard to create something that has the same effect yourself. By combining camera flash parts with a AA battery, the device delivers 300 volts when plugged into an unsuspecting computer. It’s effectively the same as a power surge, but the difference is that most power supplies have protection against those. USB buses often can’t offer the same kind of resistance, and consequently relay the energy to the rest of the computer, instantly killing it.

When that happens, it looks something like this.

Be careful, and please don’t just plug in any thumb drive. It might cost you your computer.