Slack Testing New Mobile App Design Inspired by Microsoft Teams

The heavy competition between Slack and Microsoft Teams has been unreal recently. Although Microsoft originally had thought about acquiring Slack back in the days, the company ended up launching its own product instead.

And that’s worked out really well so far. With Microsoft Teams now having more than 20 million active users, it’s easily bigger than Slack. Slack is obviously under a lot of pressure, with the company claiming it has more engagement than Teams just after Microsoft announced the new 20 million active users figure.

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As it turns out, the competition might just be having some influence on Slack. The company is now testing a new interface for its mobile apps that looks a lot like Microsoft Teams, as first spotted by Jane Manchun Wong. The new interface introduces a new navigation pane at the bottom, much like Microsoft Teams, with your Channels, Messages, and other things separated into different tabs. For comparison, here’s the Microsoft Teams app interface — notice the bottom bar?

Slack’s new interface is arguably a little simpler and less crowded than that of Microsoft Teams, but it still goes to show how much competition can influence a product. Bottom navigation bars are obviously nothing new, but Slack has stuck to its classic hamburger navigation pane that opens up from the side for a long time, and this could be a significant change in the app’s design if Slack does end up releasing it to the public.

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Conversation 4 comments

  • awilisch

    10 December, 2019 - 2:53 pm

    <p>Would be interesting to know what Microsoft calls 'active users' I have Teams installed and am pretty sure everyone who used to be on Skype for Business is on there, but we as a company do not use Teams we use Slack (would rather use Teams honestly). </p>

    • darkgrayknight

      Premium Member
      11 December, 2019 - 3:26 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497284">In reply to awilisch:</a></em></blockquote><p>From the original statement from Microsoft, the active users are those sending actual content to others. So a good definition of active users.</p>

  • billbliss

    12 December, 2019 - 12:55 am

    <p>I’m on the Teams team. @awilisch, you are not counted as a Teams user unless you actively click on something or type something, so from what you are saying, you would not be counted as an active user. But we’d love to have you!</p>

    • plettza

      13 December, 2019 - 3:46 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#497605">In reply to billbliss:</a></em></blockquote><p>Why no UWP version?</p><p><br></p><p>The Win32 version of Teams is simply too difficult to use on a Windows 10 tablet in tablet mode. Teams doesn't resize itself when the onscreen keyboard appears and its touch targets are not suitable for fingers. </p><p>It's also slow and power hungry. It doesn't integrate its notifications into Windows well</p><p><br></p><p>Oh and I have to download a setup.exe to install it. I want our users to simply install it via the Store. </p><p><br></p><p>Updating of Teams is also done manually. Really? We're almost in 2020, not 1998. Apps should update themselves automatically through the Microsoft Store these days.</p><p><br></p><p>I work in the field and use an HP X2 Pro tablet so I need something like Teams often but I'm put off using it.</p><p><br></p><p>For these reasons (and others), I cringe when Teams starts up on my tablet but our team requires its use. I can't believe the various "teams" within Microsoft are still developing Win32 apps in this day and age. </p>

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