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Microsoft Launches Outlook for iOS with iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo Mail Support

petvas said:
Outlook doesn't suck. Most businesses love Outlook. Consumers with light requirements hate it mostly because of its complex nature.
Anyone with power user requirements loves Outlook...
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I love the integrated power of Outlook from a feature standpoint (with some significant misses). But the UI and the programming do suck. On Windows at least, it's the most single-threaded piece of crap I've ever seen on a full-fledged computer. Any resource contention issues, and the app just locks up and freezes. Combine that with Windows general lack of a useful window manager (ironic, that), and you get interesting screen artifact hijinks that you can easily use to laugh at the product.

And MS owns the entire stack - both Outlook and Exchange.

Oh, forgot one... Maybe they've fixed it recently, but on Outlook, you can import vCard files, but Outlook stops processing data after the first vCard in the file!!! Makes it kind of tedous to send contact lists from your Mac to a friend/colleague using Outlook. Seems like a rather obvious use case. Sigh...
 
Can't log onto any of my email accounts to give it a try on my iPad. Keeps failing. Maybe server is busy?
 
Milquetoast said:
I love the integrated power of Outlook from a feature standpoint (with some significant misses). But the UI and the programming do suck. On Windows at least, it's the most single-threaded piece of crap I've ever seen on a full-fledged computer. Any resource contention issues, and the app just locks up and freezes. Combine that with Windows general lack of a useful window manager (ironic, that), and you get interesting screen artifact hijinks that you can easily use to laugh at the product.

And MS owns the entire stack - both Outlook and Exchange.

Oh, forgot one... Maybe they've fixed it recently, but on Outlook, you can import vCard files, but Outlook stops processing data after the first vCard in the file!!! Makes it kind of tedous to send contact lists from your Mac to a friend/colleague using Outlook. Seems like a rather obvious use case. Sigh...
Click to expand...

Yea I've seen those issues for sure. You have a recommendation for another product to replace exchange? ;) has its nags but it's not terrible

Don't necessarily mind the ui, but those performance issues.. Freeze on sending of outgoing mail with attachment until upload complete bothers me the most. We are on server 2003 exchange 2007 hopefully new server upgrade soon will have improvement. Mail is last for the move off 2003
 
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I want to attach files into the emails not a link to the file in Dropbox. Fail.
 
Belmont31R said:
Why did you link the privacy policy for a different app?



Edit- I see the privacy policy for Outlook links to the Acompli policy. Unusual to me they haven't created their own for this app.
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That's because the app is written by Acompli. Microsoft simply bought the company and rebranded it.
 
gotluck said:
Yea I've seen those issues for sure. You have a recommendation for another product to replace exchange? ;) has its nags but it's not terrible

Don't necessarily mind the ui, but those performance issues.. Freeze on sending of outgoing mail with attachment until upload complete bothers me the most. We are on server 2003 exchange 2007 hopefully new server upgrade soon will have improvement. Mail is last for the move off 2003
Click to expand...

Exchange is the best Mail platform available.
What version of Outlook are you using? What kind of add-ons are installed in Outlook? Many performance related issues are caused by 3rd party extensions.

(Answering to gotluck) The only thing I agree is about window management. It can become really messy and this is one of the main reasons I use a Mac :)
 
Morac said:
Read the Privacy Policy for the Outlook app very carefully before you decide to use it.

https://www.acompli.com/privacy-policy...

Microsoft stores the account info of any account you add to the app on their servers. For accounts like GMail, it stores an OAuth token, but for accounts like Yahoo and Exchange, it's storing actually the email address and passwords.

It also stores mail, calendar and contact data on their servers for all accounts. This is used to provide push notifications for Mail and Calendars since iOS doesn't allow polling in the background.

I don't think I trust Microsoft to: a) not use this data and b) protect the data from hackers.

Even if you do trust Microsoft, it's highly unlikely your company's security policy would allow storing company mail and access credentials on Microsoft's servers.
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Safe to use Gmail accounts??
 
Anyone know what the email address is you can email to request they remove all your data from their servers?

I can't find it anywhere : /
 
Microsoft Launches Outlook for iOS with iCloud, Gmail, Yahoo Mail Support

AndyK said:
Anyone know what the email address is you can email to request they remove all your data from their servers?



I can't find it anywhere : /
Click to expand...


The address listed in the privacy policy is support@acompli.com but don't bother emailing that as it sends an auto reply to contact them using the contact button in the app.

I asked on their blog and got a response which claimed that data is removed if you remove using the remove remote data option. I was also told that even if you don't remove remote data (cached emails, calendar and contact data) it will be removed after a "short while". I don't know about account credentials since I never received a response about that.

I do know that I added my Exchange account yesterday and removed it (including remote data) once I learned of the security issues and deleted the app. I reinstalled and tried logging in today again after I read that credentials were cached and that logging in could be done simply by entering a username and password, without having to specify the server again. For me I was asked to enter the server (which I didn't), so it seems to be removing data. It might take a day though.

According to the help pages one month's worth of data is cached on Microsoft's servers.

https://support.office.com/en-us/learn/outlook-for-ios-and-android-faq

Edit:

Emailing privacy@acompli.com works.
 
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groovyf said:
The Register has just posted an article about the security of the app:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/01/30/dev_finds_bleak_security_outlook_for_ios_app/
Click to expand...

A number of suppositions along with some irrelevant concerns (sharing through external services like Dripbox can be done using any or no email at all), adds up to a good amount of FUD. That's not to say that there aren't some valid things there (many of which also apply to many other apps and services many people use), but the sensationalism that it is all soaked in kind of undermines quite a bit of the intent it would seem.
 
C DM said:
A number of suppositions along with some irrelevant concerns (sharing through external services like Dripbox can be done using any or no email at all), adds up to a good amount of FUD. That's not to say that there aren't some valid things there (many of which also apply to many other apps and services many people use), but the sensationalism that it is all soaked in kind of undermines quite a bit of the intent it would seem.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's FUD. Microsoft is storing Exchange credentials and emails, calendar and contact data on their server and they aren't being up front about that. It's not mentioned anywhere in the App Store description or in the app itself. Yes it's mentioned in their privacy policy, but how many people actually read that?

There really should be a big warning text when adding account info that credentials will be stored and to check with your company IT department before logging in to see if it violates any company policies or laws. For example if someone who works at a hospital uses the app it could violate HIPAA laws.

As it is now, Microsoft is touting the app as a client mail application when it's not.
 
FWIW, after posting about this yesterday, I also forwarded the information to our IT department (I work for a Fortune 500 company in Silicon Valley). They contacted Microsoft to confirm. As a result, they are blocking this app from accessing our corporate email as of today.

PS: Blocking the app is very easy: You just need to add an Activesync quarantine policy for the device family "outlook-iOS-Android/1.0" to your Exchange server configuration.
 
Morac said:
As it is now, Microsoft is touting the app as a client mail application when it's not.
Click to expand...

I'd say most of the confusion stems from the fact that MS is using the name usually associated with their enterprise email client for an app that's really just a front end for their more consumer oriented web client...

...that also shares the same name.

Pretty par for the course for them, actually. MS has always been goofy when it comes to differentiating their brands. There's nothing desperately wrong with the app itself, but the naming conflict brings up all sorts of confusion.

Hey, it's Outlook for iOS, just not the Outlook you're thinking of. It's the other Outlook.
 
Renzatic said:
I'd say most of the confusion stems from the fact that MS is using the name usually associated with their enterprise email client for an app that's really just a front end for their more consumer oriented web client...

...that also shares the same name.

Pretty par for the course for them, actually. MS has always been goofy when it comes to differentiating their brands. There's nothing desperately wrong with the app itself, but the naming conflict brings up all sorts of confusion.

Hey, it's Outlook for iOS, just not the Outlook you're thinking of. It's the other Outlook.
Click to expand...


I guess they expect people to notice it's blue Outlook (like outlook.com) rather than yellow Outlook (like Outlook that's part of Office). lol
 
Morac said:
According to the help pages one month's worth of data is cached on Microsoft's servers.

https://support.office.com/en-us/learn/outlook-for-ios-and-android-faq

Edit:

Emailing privacy@acompli.com works.
Click to expand...

To follow up on this, I sent an email to the above address with the following wording:

Hi,

I’m emailing to request that all details and information you have relating to myself or my email servers be removed from your system.

My email address those details are associated with is ‘-my email address-’.

Many thanks & kind regards,
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I received an email around 3 hours (ish) later from an @microsoft.com email address with the simple response of "Done.". I have no real way to check, but hopefully they scrub as efficiently as they seem to.
 
AndyK said:
I received an email around 3 hours (ish) later from an @microsoft.com email address with the simple response of "Done.". I have no real way to check, but hopefully they scrub as efficiently as they seem to.
Click to expand...

For what it's worth, I got a similar response. I replied back asking if he removed it or it was already removed and got a response saying it was already removed, so it sounds like deleting the account in the app works.

On a side note, if you leave the app installed, you can also contact them via the contact us button in the app. I did so and got a push notification response even though I deleted all the accounts off the app.
 
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