14 DAY TRIAL // Outlook is arguably one of the best email clients on iOS and Microsoft keeps improving it regularly with new features and refined UI to make it even more advanced.
And today, the company announced a major new update for Outlook, with iPhones to get it right now, while Android users will have to wait a few more months.
First and foremost, the new Outlook comes with substantial refinements for the search feature, which now provides more than just emails. The email app now looks into pretty much everything that’s within the app to list emails, appointments, contacts, and contextual information, all within an updated interface that’s clean and easy to browse.
Furthermore, the search feature can display contacts, attachments, and even flight information at a glance, all of them easy to browse with quick swipes on the results page.
“The new intelligent search is powered by the Microsoft Graph and lights up immediately with the content from your top contacts, upcoming travel itineraries, package deliveries and recent attachments—with many more exciting things to come!” Microsoft explains.
New conversation UI
The conversation UI has been improved with a clearer separation between individual messages, but also with quick replies. In a conversation, you can further enhance the quick reply option by tapping the recipients list to edit or the ellipsis to access additional actions like Forward or Reply All.
Overall navigation has also been refined and the most striking change is the addition of a new side menu that allows you to switch from one contact to another, but also to open specific folders in your emails. This is a feature that appears to be inspired by the Gmail app, but which certainly comes in handy to those using Outlook on a regular basis.
The new features are already available for iOS users right now, except for the search update, which will be rolled out at a later time. Android users will get this update at a later time, though no specifics have been provided for the time being.
