Google makes great apps, but these aren’t it if you ask me

Google is a software company and knows how to make great apps. I mean, I use apps like Gmail, Maps, YouTube, and Drive on a regular basis. Then there are its AI-focused apps like NotebookLM, which is by far the most underrated app in Google’s arsenal.

However, there are a few apps I think are way underdeveloped and need some serious work. They’re simply too basic for me, or lack many of the features you get with the competition. I know Google is all about simplicity at times, but it’s taking things too far with some of its apps.

I want to discuss four of them and explain why I think they desperately need an upgrade. Let’s dive in.

As far as note-taking apps go, Google Keep is as basic as they get. Even fundamental things like text formatting are very basic, with Keep only offering a few options. While the app itself launched over a decade ago, these basic formatting features were only widely rolled out to the Android app in 2023, with the desktop version catching up two months ago.

You have two heading options on offer, as well as the ability to bold, italicize, and underline text. That’s it. You can’t change colors, adjust the font size outside of the available headings, or create a bulleted list.

While you can upload images to a note, you can’t place them in a specific area, as they automatically show up on top. You can create labels to try and organize your notes, but you can’t create notebooks like with most of Google Keep’s competitors.

I get that Google is trying to keep this as a simple note-taking app, since a lot of people are into that. Not everyone wants an app that’s as feature-packed as Evernote or Notion. However, there’s a limit, and I think adding things like improved formatting options and a better system for organizing notes would still retain that simple nature Google is going for and significantly improve the app’s overall usability. I was a Keep user for years but ultimately decided to move to a rival app for these very reasons.

I tried this for a while and really wanted to love it, especially since it’s well-integrated with Gemini, but I just can’t stand it. If you think Keep is basic, take a look at Tasks. It’s as barebones as it gets.

I’ve been using Todoist for years, and it still feels like a very simple app to use. However, it’s packed with features that improve the overall experience and don’t get in my way if I don’t want to use them.

I love that I can write out “Do laundry every Wednesday at 6 PM” and the app will create a recurring task right away. Since it supports natural language input, I don’t have to manually select a date or time; I just type it out. That’s simple and efficient.

I also love that I can give a priority level to each task, use filters and labels for improved organization, create sub-projects, and see what’s on my to-do list just today for improved focus, among many other features.

With Google Tasks, you get none of that. The only features I can highlight are the ability to create lists and add a star to a task so you can find it faster. All very basic stuff, really. With the amount of money, knowledge, and manpower Google has, it should be able to make a proper to-do list app instead of giving us this barebones offering, which I don’t think many people use.

This is by far the most developed app on this list. It’s a good one overall, I’ll give it that, but it still needs work since it’s facing tough competition from Spotify and the likes.

I want to minimize the number of apps I use, so I’d ideally like YouTube Music to be my main app for podcasts, but that’s not going to happen anytime soon. The podcast feature on YouTube Music feels like an afterthought instead of being well-integrated into the overall experience. It’s very hard to find podcasts to listen to, as its discovery feature is not great compared to rival apps. If you know what you want to listen to, you can search for it, and that’s that. But if you want to explore new podcasts in specific genres or see what other people are into, then YouTube Music is not that great.

Then there are the limitations of the free plan. The music stops playing as soon as I turn off the screen, which isn’t a big deal when I’m at home, as I tend to watch videos and check out lyrics while listening to my favorite jams. But when I’m in my car, turning off the display is a must as I want to preserve battery life. I can’t do that with YouTube Music, but I think I should be able to, especially since Google gets plenty of cash from the two ads I have to listen to every fourth or fifth song.

Spotify’s free plan, for instance, allows for background playback when the screen is off, and what’s even more interesting is that the number of ads I have to listen to is significantly lower compared to YouTube Music. Sure, Spotify has other limitations YouTube Music doesn’t, but I can live with those while listening to music in my car.

I recently broke my phone and had to switch to an old OnePlus for the time being. I turned it on and found a Google Wallpaper app installed that I forgot existed. A wallpaper app from the maker of the Pixel and all those fancy apps I use at all times sounds exciting, but that excitement went away a few minutes after opening it.

The app is super basic and has a very small selection of wallpapers, especially compared to a rival app like Zedge. The wallpapers are separated into only ten categories, which seems incredibly low considering how many categories similar apps offer.

Not only is the selection limited, the wallpapers themselves aren’t really that good. Most are very generic in my opinion, although I did manage to find a few good ones. What I find interesting is that Google hasn’t even bothered connecting the app with Gemini, which would allow users to create custom wallpapers based on prompts. Google has a competitive advantage here that it’s simply not utilizing. The app itself is just so basic that I don’t know why Google made it in the first place.

These are the four apps Google needs to work on, but let me know in the comments if there are any others you think are sub-par.

Some of these bring back memories of apps like Google Podcasts, which were so basic for reasons unknown to me that Google decided to kill them

. I don’t think that’s going to happen with apps like Keep and YouTube Music, but I don’t think a lot of people would miss an app like Wallpapers. At least, I wouldn’t.