I guess they have Google Keep for that use-case now, so perhaps it's unlikely? The Keep task list feature there is decent, with checkable items that automatically go to the bottom when done, the ability to set time or location based reminders, and sharing with others.

Still, it's a bit of a pain that it's embedded in a more general app - for me, that means it can be a bit hard to find my task lists among other notes or photos.

The gmail task applet wasn't great (usable, but barely). It's a real pity Google can't just get this right, because it's exactly the kind of basic functionality that you don't want to have another login/provider for, and want good mobile / web / cloud syncing for.

Timeful was a TODO/task company, they just approached the problem in a different way, by arguing that the calendar and the TODO list should be the same app, not separate apps.

The idea was to have a TODO list with actual time committments associated, and you had the ability to actually schedule your TODO by slotting them into your calendar.

Functionally, it was a great idea, but it suffered greatly from a lack of integration with most other tools on the market. If Google runs with it, it could be interesting, hopefully they actually do something with the idea.

I hope they consolidate keep and tasks into a single product. It is not a bad thing to try to different competing approaches (inbox vs gmail), but Google does tend to do that a lot.

What's up with buying though. Why can't their teams come out with new features themselves.