Outlook Mobile Hits Two Year Anniversary, Gets (More) Extensible

Outlook Mobile Hits Two Year Anniversary, Gets Extensible

Microsoft today announced the two-year anniversary of Outlook Mobile for Android and iOS. And starting today, the iOS version is gaining extensibility thanks to a new add-ins capability.

Android will pick up this feature soon, Microsoft adds.

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“Two years ago, we launched Outlook mobile with the goal of helping you accomplish more while on the go,” Microsoft’s Javier Soltero writes in a new post to the Office Blogs. “More means an inbox that helps you focus on the emails that matter most. More means a calendar that can manage your entire day, not just show you your schedule. And today, we are excited to continue that mission by bringing apps to your inbox with add-ins for Outlook on iOS.”

For this initial launch, Outlook for iOS will support several add-ins, including:

Dynamics 365. This add-in provides “real time insights about your business contacts and their organization, right in your inbox, so you can focus on the selling and have more meaningful interactions,” Microsoft says.

Translator. Helps you read messages in your preferred language, across devices, with support for 60 languages.

Nimble. Helps you get prepared for meetings and engage effectively with business intelligence about your email contacts and their organizations, right in email.

Trello. Turns your email into actionable items, keep track of projects, and make sure emails don’t go unseen.

Evernote. Capture what’s on your mind and stay organized by clipping emails from Outlook to a project notebook in Evernote.

Smartsheet. Helps you manage and automate work so you can get work assigned, updated, and completed more quickly.

GIPHY. This one helps you add GIFs to your emails. Why? Why ask why?

Microsoft is also providing developers with the information they need to write their own add-ins, so we should see these capabilities improve nicely over time.

Currently, add-ins are only available when reading email. But Microsoft says it will be adding more add-in actions for composing or replying to email in the future too.

Good stuff. I’ll be checking this out today if possible.

 

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Conversation 22 comments

  • 9215

    02 February, 2017 - 1:51 pm

    <p>Paul,</p>
    <p>Does Outlook for iOS still have zero hooks to the OS – like say – if I am looking at a contact and want to send them a mail – the mail opens in the lame ass iOS mail app?</p>
    <p>I really want to use Outlook iOS as my defacto email client on my phone – but if I have to keep dancing around basic workflow issues like this – I cannot see myself making the move?</p>
    <p>Thoughts?</p>
    <p>B</p>

    • 289

      Premium Member
      02 February, 2017 - 2:00 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40684">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/BMcDonald">BMcDonald</a><a href="#40684">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Yeah, that’s an iOS issue. Apple will not allow you to change the default apps.</p>

      • 9215

        02 February, 2017 - 2:09 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#40690">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/Chris_Kez">Chris_Kez</a><a href="#40690">:</a></em></blockquote>
        <p>So for those that have made the switch (I actually did try Outlook iOS about 6 months ago and it was excellent) what does everyone do?</p>
        <p>Manually email a contact etc in some workaround kind of way? Or – simply not use the iOS contacts app? (more likely)&nbsp;</p>
        <p>B</p>

        • 4800

          Premium Member
          02 February, 2017 - 2:45 pm

          <blockquote><em><a href="#40694">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/BMcDonald">BMcDonald</a><a href="#40694">:</a></em></blockquote>
          <p>If you have an exchange account then all your contacts are there in the app. &nbsp;You can then setup that exchange account in the iOS settings so the same contacts are in your phones contact list. &nbsp;To send an email you would need to go into the Outlook app and click the new mail button instead of going into the stock apps and clicking the send an email button.</p>
          <p>The way I have mine setup is my personal email is in the stock app and my work email is in Outlook.</p>

  • 2394

    Premium Member
    02 February, 2017 - 2:03 pm

    <p>"More means an inbox that helps you focus on the emails that matter most."</p>
    <p>Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of. That it’ll be like the Outlook web client which is borderline unusable because Microsoft thinks it knows better than you what emails to "focus" on.</p>

  • 211

    Premium Member
    02 February, 2017 - 2:49 pm

    <p>Personally this doesn’t do anything for me but it gives me some (faint) hope that one day Outlook may support the standard iOS share button so I can pass messages on to other apps, such as Todoist.</p>

  • 430

    Premium Member
    02 February, 2017 - 2:51 pm

    <p>I’ll say it again in case Microsoft is listening… &nbsp;Fix the contact integration in the Android version already! &nbsp;I get how it can’t happen in iOS, but there’s no excuse for the Android situation still being what it is at this point. &nbsp;I don’t think this is as difficult of a "computer science problem" as power management in Windows. 🙂 &nbsp;This situation is keeping faithful fanbois from using your app. &nbsp;Contact management is bad enough for those of us in multiple ecosystems already, and I’m not adding one more layer to that issue with this app.</p>

    • 4964

      02 February, 2017 - 6:03 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40702">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/bassoprofundo">bassoprofundo</a><a href="#40702">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>I agree, the Android Contact feature is not worthy of the Outlook brand. Fix it or remove People from the app</p>

  • 6014

    02 February, 2017 - 3:16 pm

    <p>I’d settle for being able to add and edit a contact via Outlook on Android.&nbsp; Seriously, basic stuff first please Microsoft.</p>

    • 5783

      04 February, 2017 - 1:33 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40711">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/Daekar">Daekar</a><a href="#40711">:</a>&nbsp;100% agree. It’s frustrating enough to me that I’m already migrating away.</em></blockquote>
      <p>&nbsp;</p>

    • 8853

      05 February, 2017 - 10:29 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40711">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/Daekar">Daekar</a><a href="#40711">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Yes, I can hardly believe this is still not possible. I wish I never had to deal with&nbsp;the Google Contacts app.</p>

  • 5496

    02 February, 2017 - 3:29 pm

    <p>Why aren’t these new feature come too Windows PC or Phone first?</p>

    • 8444

      02 February, 2017 - 4:39 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40715">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#40715">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Because almost nobody cares</p>

    • 10215

      03 February, 2017 - 4:50 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40715">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#40715">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Windows Phone is almost obsolete and it’s most certainly irrelevant.&nbsp; That’s why. </p>

      • 5539

        04 February, 2017 - 4:59 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#40808">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/Steve78">Steve78</a><a href="#40808">:</a>&nbsp;</em>But Windows PC is not, and it is the ‘same’ Mail app.</blockquote>
        <p>&nbsp;</p>

    • 5530

      03 February, 2017 - 5:55 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40715">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#40715">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>Would understand not bringing this to Phone but it’s almost a sin to not bring this to the PC. What a waste. Would love an actual Outlook app for the PC unlike the current Mail app that we have now which is just sad.</p>

    • 8853

      05 February, 2017 - 10:30 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#40715">In reply to </a><a href="../../users/lordbaal1">lordbaal1</a><a href="#40715">:</a></em></blockquote>
      <p>I still use outlook.com in a browser.</p>

  • 10215

    03 February, 2017 - 4:38 am

    <p>Microsoft regularly update Outlook for iOS and since mid-December it’s become very unreliable.&nbsp; I rarely get push notifications and I usually only see new e-mail when I manually refresh.&nbsp; Awful.&nbsp;</p>

  • 2585

    03 February, 2017 - 10:11 am

    <p>I can see a tremendous amount of usefulness in several of these features, especially dynamics and translate. I updated the app, but the new ad in widget isn’t showing for me.</p>
    <p>&nbsp;On a second note, it’s really ridiculous how nebulous the word ‘Outlook’ has become. Is it an app? A service? A mail client? A premium productivity tool? Yes. &nbsp;Is there consistency in the features, capabilities or experience? No.&nbsp;</p>

  • 4039

    Premium Member
    03 February, 2017 - 1:16 pm

    <p>Can Microsoft please make an add-in that makes Outlook actually work like Outlook? &nbsp;I find it useless to use on my iPhone with our corporate Exchange server for scheduling meetings with people. &nbsp;No way to add conference rooms as a resource, horrible support for recurring meetings (e.g. trying to cancel just one event without deleting the entire recurring series), etc.</p>

  • 459

    Premium Member
    03 February, 2017 - 6:07 pm

    <p>Bizarre there is no OneNote add in.</p>

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