Outlook for iOS and Mac

30 January 2015, 08:12

I’ve been using ‘proper’ computers since 1992 (that is, computers that aren’t home micros, like the Atari ST).

In all that time I’ve avoided Microsoft Outlook.

Until yesterday.

What’s swung it for me was the release of the iOS version of Outlook. This is free. It’s pretty good but if you’re not accessing an Exchange server (and you won’t unless you’re using Outlook for work email) then there’s no real reason to use it above and beyond the built-in iOS Mail app.

Unless you have Outlook installed on your Mac.

If that’s the case you can use the insanely useful Follow-Up feature to send emails into the future so you can act on them when you’ve time. You can set a follow-up of tomorrow, or next week, or a custom date.

This ability is the hot new thing in email clients, even though it’s pretty well established in Outlook. The Google Inbox app is built around it, for example.

When using Outlook on both iOS and Mac the Follow-Ups are somehow synced automatically, which is just perfect. You swipe on an email in the iOS app to select to Follow Up, and right-click on an email on a Mac and select the Follow-Up option on the menu.

Outlook on iOS is still a little rough and ready, but it works and will only get better. All in all, it’s one more thing that makes me think that Microsoft is doing things right — and that’s another thing that since 1992 I’ve never admitted.

ps. Don’t forget that a new version of Outlook for Mac is available, which saves using the four year-old version that comes as part of Office 2011.

Know better?

 
---