7 ms·

Microsoft Launches Outlook for iOS and Android

122 points by sidcool 12y ago

alexggordon 12y ago
It's really excellent to see Microsoft understanding the need for cross platform support. I'm much more likely to trust them as a user, knowing that I'll have support for whatever device I'm on in the future.
matdrewin 12y ago
This is just a rebranded Accompli and not a true e-mail client. From the privacy policy: "We provide a service that indexes and accelerates delivery of your email to your device. That means that our service retrieves your incoming and outgoing email messages and securely pushes them to the app on your device." So it basically doesn't work if you're trying to reach an on-premise Exchange server via VPN.
- larrybud 12y ago
  Even for hosted email, it would violate most corporate infosec policies.
  - jerf 12y ago
    "Corporate infosec" policies on email have been taking a pretty big beating in the past few years anyhow. "BYOD", bring your own device, is a big buzzword in that field right now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device For all the horror stories of corporate IT lording their position over people lower on the ladder, in the end they are a service organization that is reacting, not dictating, and in this case it's often the executives who get the expensive-at-the-time tech first anyhow.
    - X-Istence 12y ago
      At least on iOS the company can dictate the security requirements of the device using Exchange. For example because of corporate policies my iOS device is set to wipe itself after 4 invalid passwords have been entered rather than the default 10.
      - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
        This is an extremely stupid policy.
        nullrouted 12y ago
        Lets add it doesn't add really any value to actual security. All it does is tick off the userbase and show you as an "unfriendly" security department. Just absolutely silly and whoever implemented that policy should be fired.
    - bonaldi 12y ago
      "Corporate infosec" policies on email are getting a lot more attention now that various leaks have made executives and other non-technical people realise exactly how vulnerable corporate data is. Anecdotally I've seen IT teams having a much easier time explaining why you can't forward everything to GMail, for instance. That chimes with quite a few reports coming out claiming European-based cloud hosting is benefitting at the expense of US-based setups. BYOD is still a real thing, for sure. But iOS talking to corporate Exchange can relatively easily be made compliant with infosec. A third-party app ingesting corporate email to servers hosted in China under vague licensing? Not so much.
  - fluidcruft 12y ago
    I installed it and was starting to like it. I really, really love Google Inbox and want it so desperately to support our hospital Outlook server. It never occurred to me that installing "Microsoft Outlook for Android" would mean "upload all your hospital email to some acquihired cloud". When Google abandoned the Email app in Lollipop and forced us all to add our Outlook accounts to the Gmail app, I was concerned (Google does explain quite clearly that this is just a UI thing and that it's not merging the email into the Gmail servers at all) that I would have to go back to those abominations in the Play Store since all the Outlook clients on Android suck and K9 refuses to work with our Exchange server. And here Microsoft releases Outlook for Android and I was all excited for nothing. Thank god I didn't receive any emails containing PHI while I had it enabled.
    - lurkinggrue 12y ago
      Try touchdown instead?
      - fluidcruft 12y ago
        Touchdown has always been buggy (it loves to go into battery-draining fits) and is extremely buggy on Lollypop. It also hasn't been updated in tech-eons. It is so extremely frustrating to have to deal with a corporate Outlook server on Android. That's why I was excited that Microsoft finally put out something.
        lurkinggrue 12y ago
        Shame this is simplistic to the point of nearly being useless.
    - tdkl 12y ago
      Give Nine a go : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolders.hd3 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolder...
ForFreedom 12y ago
Same interface as accompli. In fact accompli is really good.
- kmfrk 12y ago
  It is. Microsoft acquired it, so they probably pulled a Sparrow. :)
  - aout 12y ago
    I would add that Acompli isn't on the AppStore anymore so it's probably a pure rebranding of the app.
    - kmfrk 12y ago
      Oh, I didn't even notice that. Looks like the Outlook app doesn't have the bottom buttons with links to e-mail and calendar, which would be a real bummer.
- jdub 12y ago
  Well that explains the surprisingly fast turnaround from acquisition to release! :-)
sz4kerto 12y ago
About time. I have bought Nine for Exchange stuff because Outlook for Android just didn't cut it while Nine is basically perfect. I hope this will raise the bar. Edit : no support for aliases. Well, it's not suitable for me then.
- rvschuilenburg 12y ago
  > no support for aliases. It does show aliases in my Gmail account i setup in Outlook for iOS.
  - sz4kerto 12y ago
    Not for me (Android + Outlook.com account).
- vetinari 12y ago
  I bought Nine for Exchange some time ago and Outlook still is far behind Nine. The first thing I wondered about was remote wipe and password policy. Outlook does not enforce them... but still downloads your mail to third-party! That's a big no-no. The very nice feature of Nine is ability to sandbox the remote wipe and password policies to app only - very nice, if you are contractor using your own device with account on your customer's Exchange. Another thing is Calendar - Nine creates calendar provider and the system Calendar app will display it together with your own. Outlook has its own Calendar and you have to switch between them. You cannot see your agenda in single list. Same with contacts. Nine also allows encrypting and signing messages. So far, I don't see any reason switching from Nine. It was 8 EUR well spent.
  - mey 12y ago
    I think you just sold me on this, going to go check out Nine.
  - benjaminl 12y ago
    Per their security policy, the app and servers respect exchange initiated remote wipes see section 3 "User data retention" at https://www.acompli.com/security/ https://www.acompli.com/security/
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
DiabloD3 12y ago
I wonder if it properly supports shared mailboxes, thats the one thing third party clients never properly support.
tl 12y ago
From the app: To use this app, your mailbox must be running on * Exchange Server 2013 CU3 That requirement may hurt adoption.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- m_st 12y ago
  From the app description: 'Outlook works with Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, Outlook.com, iCloud, Gmail and Yahoo Mail.'
  - c1sc0 12y ago
    And (sadly) that covers 90% of email setups.
m_st 12y ago
Installed, started and then realized that you have to give them your credentials so their server can download your mail rather than the app doing this. I understand the benefits of these cloud mail checkers but this is just a 'no go' for me. Too bad.
- msh 12y ago
  I think this is the only way to do a push email app on iOS with support for third party email accounts.
- 6993 12y ago
  They should implement OAuth2.0, then there's no need to give them your password. Meanwhile creating an app specific password might do as well?
  - m_st 12y ago
    That wouldn't change anything for me/us as they would still have access to my private mail which bothers me and/or access to my company mail which I'm sure bothers my company.
  - benjaminl 12y ago
    OAuth is implemented for products that support it, such as Google and Gmail accounts. Exchange doesn't support OAuth. See https://www.acompli.com/privacy-policy/ https://www.acompli.com/privacy-policy/.
- fluidcruft 12y ago
  Jesus. How did you even realize this, I didn't see that anywhere? Goddamnit.
higherpurpose 12y ago
Microsoft Rebrands App As Outlook for iOS and Android, would be more accurate.
ommunist 12y ago
That will be a selling point for Windows-based smartphones.
mark_l_watson 12y ago
My family is subscribed to Office365, largely to get OneDrive. I am going to wait a few days for more reviews to come in and then probably try it on my iPad and droid phone. I have a custom domain name for email and I use gmail. I would think that mapping a custom domain to Office365's email hosting and using gmail separately in the new apps would be well supported.
- JeremyNT 12y ago
  As others have noted, this is a rebranded Accompli. Reviews on Accompli should be relevant. I find Accompli to be decent and I'm happy to see Microsoft move quickly with it post acquisition. I have noticed a few crashes on my Nexus 5, but in general it works well. I would recommend it over the Google provided Android solution.
sbarre 12y ago
I am happy to see more high-quality native mail apps on iOS.. Competition is good.
o0-0o 12y ago
I thought I remember reading that Acompli was developed in China as well. So does this mean that their servers are still in China? Just curious to see if anyone knows. I couldn't find any info on that.
ComputerGuru 12y ago
I saw the comments here about giving your password to Microsoft, but on iPhone it uses OAuth (at least for GMail and hosted Google accounts).
anonbanker 12y ago
Yeah. Sticking with K-9 mail, thanks. Some of us try to keep our android devices as FOSS as possible.
thejerz 12y ago
If your Exchange sysadmin blocks iPhone access, this app won't work. For that reason, I'm sticking with CloudMagic, which works regardless of Exchange device-level permissions.
- tdkl 12y ago
  Doesn't CloudMagic collect data in their cloud to offer push as well ?
grandalf 12y ago
The OWA mobile app for IOS would be an embarrassment if released by a few developers working in their spare time, much less a multi-billion dollar company.
lurkinggrue 12y ago
Wow, this is a painful app for me to use. I have a subfolder of people I need to deal with that mail gets sorted into but this I have to drill down to get to it and can't set it as a default view. This thing is simplistic and horrible.
cr_huber 12y ago
Now if only i could access my Outlook.com contacts & calendar from my Mac. If anyone has any solutions I'd love to hear them
orand 12y ago
The best feature is that your corporate IT goons are no longer able to remote-wipe your entire device simply because you hooked up to work email. With the Outlook app they can only wipe your email.

122 points by sidcool 12y ago

It's really excellent to see Microsoft understanding the need for cross platform support. I'm much more likely to trust them as a user, knowing that I'll have support for whatever device I'm on in the future.

matdrewin 12y ago

This is just a rebranded Accompli and not a true e-mail client. From the privacy policy: "We provide a service that indexes and accelerates delivery of your email to your device. That means that our service retrieves your incoming and outgoing email messages and securely pushes them to the app on your device." So it basically doesn't work if you're trying to reach an on-premise Exchange server via VPN.

larrybud 12y ago
Even for hosted email, it would violate most corporate infosec policies.
- jerf 12y ago
  "Corporate infosec" policies on email have been taking a pretty big beating in the past few years anyhow. "BYOD", bring your own device, is a big buzzword in that field right now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bring_your_own_device For all the horror stories of corporate IT lording their position over people lower on the ladder, in the end they are a service organization that is reacting, not dictating, and in this case it's often the executives who get the expensive-at-the-time tech first anyhow.
  - X-Istence 12y ago
    At least on iOS the company can dictate the security requirements of the device using Exchange. For example because of corporate policies my iOS device is set to wipe itself after 4 invalid passwords have been entered rather than the default 10.
    - lawnchair_larry 12y ago
      This is an extremely stupid policy.
      - nullrouted 12y ago
        Lets add it doesn't add really any value to actual security. All it does is tick off the userbase and show you as an "unfriendly" security department. Just absolutely silly and whoever implemented that policy should be fired.
  - bonaldi 12y ago
    "Corporate infosec" policies on email are getting a lot more attention now that various leaks have made executives and other non-technical people realise exactly how vulnerable corporate data is. Anecdotally I've seen IT teams having a much easier time explaining why you can't forward everything to GMail, for instance. That chimes with quite a few reports coming out claiming European-based cloud hosting is benefitting at the expense of US-based setups. BYOD is still a real thing, for sure. But iOS talking to corporate Exchange can relatively easily be made compliant with infosec. A third-party app ingesting corporate email to servers hosted in China under vague licensing? Not so much.
- fluidcruft 12y ago
  I installed it and was starting to like it. I really, really love Google Inbox and want it so desperately to support our hospital Outlook server. It never occurred to me that installing "Microsoft Outlook for Android" would mean "upload all your hospital email to some acquihired cloud". When Google abandoned the Email app in Lollipop and forced us all to add our Outlook accounts to the Gmail app, I was concerned (Google does explain quite clearly that this is just a UI thing and that it's not merging the email into the Gmail servers at all) that I would have to go back to those abominations in the Play Store since all the Outlook clients on Android suck and K9 refuses to work with our Exchange server. And here Microsoft releases Outlook for Android and I was all excited for nothing. Thank god I didn't receive any emails containing PHI while I had it enabled.
  - lurkinggrue 12y ago
    Try touchdown instead?
    - fluidcruft 12y ago
      Touchdown has always been buggy (it loves to go into battery-draining fits) and is extremely buggy on Lollypop. It also hasn't been updated in tech-eons. It is so extremely frustrating to have to deal with a corporate Outlook server on Android. That's why I was excited that Microsoft finally put out something.
      - lurkinggrue 12y ago
        Shame this is simplistic to the point of nearly being useless.
  - tdkl 12y ago
    Give Nine a go : https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolders.hd3 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ninefolder...

ForFreedom 12y ago

Same interface as accompli. In fact accompli is really good.

kmfrk 12y ago
It is. Microsoft acquired it, so they probably pulled a Sparrow. :)
- aout 12y ago
  I would add that Acompli isn't on the AppStore anymore so it's probably a pure rebranding of the app.
  - kmfrk 12y ago
    Oh, I didn't even notice that. Looks like the Outlook app doesn't have the bottom buttons with links to e-mail and calendar, which would be a real bummer.
jdub 12y ago
Well that explains the surprisingly fast turnaround from acquisition to release! :-)

sz4kerto 12y ago

About time. I have bought Nine for Exchange stuff because Outlook for Android just didn't cut it while Nine is basically perfect. I hope this will raise the bar. Edit : no support for aliases. Well, it's not suitable for me then.

rvschuilenburg 12y ago
> no support for aliases. It does show aliases in my Gmail account i setup in Outlook for iOS.
- sz4kerto 12y ago
  Not for me (Android + Outlook.com account).
vetinari 12y ago
I bought Nine for Exchange some time ago and Outlook still is far behind Nine. The first thing I wondered about was remote wipe and password policy. Outlook does not enforce them... but still downloads your mail to third-party! That's a big no-no. The very nice feature of Nine is ability to sandbox the remote wipe and password policies to app only - very nice, if you are contractor using your own device with account on your customer's Exchange. Another thing is Calendar - Nine creates calendar provider and the system Calendar app will display it together with your own. Outlook has its own Calendar and you have to switch between them. You cannot see your agenda in single list. Same with contacts. Nine also allows encrypting and signing messages. So far, I don't see any reason switching from Nine. It was 8 EUR well spent.
- mey 12y ago
  I think you just sold me on this, going to go check out Nine.
- benjaminl 12y ago
  Per their security policy, the app and servers respect exchange initiated remote wipes see section 3 "User data retention" at https://www.acompli.com/security/ https://www.acompli.com/security/

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

DiabloD3 12y ago

I wonder if it properly supports shared mailboxes, thats the one thing third party clients never properly support.

tl 12y ago

From the app: To use this app, your mailbox must be running on * Exchange Server 2013 CU3 That requirement may hurt adoption.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
m_st 12y ago
From the app description: 'Outlook works with Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, Outlook.com, iCloud, Gmail and Yahoo Mail.'
- c1sc0 12y ago
  And (sadly) that covers 90% of email setups.

m_st 12y ago

Installed, started and then realized that you have to give them your credentials so their server can download your mail rather than the app doing this. I understand the benefits of these cloud mail checkers but this is just a 'no go' for me. Too bad.

msh 12y ago
I think this is the only way to do a push email app on iOS with support for third party email accounts.
6993 12y ago
They should implement OAuth2.0, then there's no need to give them your password. Meanwhile creating an app specific password might do as well?
- m_st 12y ago
  That wouldn't change anything for me/us as they would still have access to my private mail which bothers me and/or access to my company mail which I'm sure bothers my company.
- benjaminl 12y ago
  OAuth is implemented for products that support it, such as Google and Gmail accounts. Exchange doesn't support OAuth. See https://www.acompli.com/privacy-policy/ https://www.acompli.com/privacy-policy/.
fluidcruft 12y ago
Jesus. How did you even realize this, I didn't see that anywhere? Goddamnit.

higherpurpose 12y ago

Microsoft Rebrands App As Outlook for iOS and Android, would be more accurate.

ommunist 12y ago

That will be a selling point for Windows-based smartphones.

mark_l_watson 12y ago

My family is subscribed to Office365, largely to get OneDrive. I am going to wait a few days for more reviews to come in and then probably try it on my iPad and droid phone. I have a custom domain name for email and I use gmail. I would think that mapping a custom domain to Office365's email hosting and using gmail separately in the new apps would be well supported.

JeremyNT 12y ago
As others have noted, this is a rebranded Accompli. Reviews on Accompli should be relevant. I find Accompli to be decent and I'm happy to see Microsoft move quickly with it post acquisition. I have noticed a few crashes on my Nexus 5, but in general it works well. I would recommend it over the Google provided Android solution.

sbarre 12y ago

I am happy to see more high-quality native mail apps on iOS.. Competition is good.

o0-0o 12y ago

I thought I remember reading that Acompli was developed in China as well. So does this mean that their servers are still in China? Just curious to see if anyone knows. I couldn't find any info on that.

ComputerGuru 12y ago

I saw the comments here about giving your password to Microsoft, but on iPhone it uses OAuth (at least for GMail and hosted Google accounts).

anonbanker 12y ago

Yeah. Sticking with K-9 mail, thanks. Some of us try to keep our android devices as FOSS as possible.

thejerz 12y ago

If your Exchange sysadmin blocks iPhone access, this app won't work. For that reason, I'm sticking with CloudMagic, which works regardless of Exchange device-level permissions.

tdkl 12y ago
Doesn't CloudMagic collect data in their cloud to offer push as well ?

grandalf 12y ago

The OWA mobile app for IOS would be an embarrassment if released by a few developers working in their spare time, much less a multi-billion dollar company.

lurkinggrue 12y ago

Wow, this is a painful app for me to use. I have a subfolder of people I need to deal with that mail gets sorted into but this I have to drill down to get to it and can't set it as a default view. This thing is simplistic and horrible.

cr_huber 12y ago

Now if only i could access my Outlook.com contacts & calendar from my Mac. If anyone has any solutions I'd love to hear them

orand 12y ago

The best feature is that your corporate IT goons are no longer able to remote-wipe your entire device simply because you hooked up to work email. With the Outlook app they can only wipe your email.