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Microsoft Outlook for iOS Gains Add-Ins Including Translator, Trello, Evernote and More

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To celebrate the two-year anniversary of Outlook Mobile, Microsoft is today introducing a major feature for the iOS version of the Outlook email app -- add-ins. For the first time, add-ins are able to be used with the mobile version Outlook, mirroring functionality available on the desktop.
Add-ins can help you get more done on the go, and save you valuable time spent switching between apps. This is why we introduced add-ins for Outlook on Windows, Mac (in Insiders) and on the web--and are now bringing them to iOS. Support for Android is coming soon.
Click to expand...
Microsoft is adding a wide range of add-ins, that will let users do things like translate messages into different languages, automatically add actions to Trello, add email clips to Evernote, insert GIFs, and more. A full list of what Microsoft is adding is below:

[*]Dynamics 365 to get 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.
[*]Translator to help you read messages in your preferred language, across devices, with support for 60 languages.
[*]Nimble to help you get prepared for meetings and engage effectively with business intelligence about your email contacts and their organizations, right in email.
[*]Trello to turn your email into actionable items, keep track of projects, and make sure emails don't go unseen.
[*]Evernote to capture what's on your mind and stay organized by clipping emails from Outlook to a project notebook in Evernote.
[*]Smartsheet to help you manage and automate work so you can get work assigned, updated, and completed more quickly.
[*]GIPHY to easily add GIFs to your emails and make "Congratulations" a little more fun!

Microsoft is letting developers create additional add-ins for iOS, with instructions available from the Office Dev Center.

Microsoft Outlook can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]

Article Link: Microsoft Outlook for iOS Gains Add-Ins Including Translator, Trello, Evernote and More
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/02/02/microsoft-outlook-for-ios-add-ins/
This sounds like Microsoft are getting special treatment here, looks very much like it is in violation of App Store rules.
 
I just can't believe that they are doing all these updates and yet the app still doesn't support HTML signatures. My work has a signature I'm required to include. iOS Mail remains my main mail app.
 
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unashamedgeek said:
My work has a signature I'm required to include. iOS Mail remains my main mail app.
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I'd be surprised if the sys admin of your work would allow you to use this security breach of an app. Unless it stops saving login data (including password!!) on Microsoft servers, the usage of this app should be avoided at any cost.
 
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My partner uses this app, and it still baffles me there's no way of reporting spam!!
And lately Outlook's filters seem to be on holiday and her inbox is constantly full of junk...
I have iCloud and Gmail(trying to get rid of) accounts via the iOS Mail app and can't remember the last time I had a spam email getting to my inboxes!!
 
I had to move away from the app because emails were getting cut in half and no way to expand them in many cases. Using right now spark. I prefer outlook but spark works good.
 
It's like they couldn't decide between "add-on" and "plugin" so they settled on "add-in". Do we really need another word for that? Jesus ****ing Christ.
 
All but one of those add-ins rates a "meh, whatever" IMHO. The only enhancement that interests me in the OP is SmartSheet. I'd rather see Zoho CRM, LiquidPlanner or TeamWork options instead of Trello's pretty stripped-down kanban metaphor, and Apptivo and Salesforce to supplement Nimble. Just saying…
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benface said:
It's like they couldn't decide between "add-on" and "plugin" so they settled on "add-in". Do we really need another word for that? Jesus ****ing Christ.
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Maybe because they call them add-ins on their desktop apps? Don't beat me up?!?
 
PLEASE add spam and junk mail support! I have been adding that to the request list for a year now, along with thousands of other people. Each time there is an update, i look at the revision notes hoping that it will be added. nope.
 
I hate the app. They really need to add in sort of VIP folder alerts. Had it on IOS mail where my on-call folder I would get alerts when new email came. Outlook and the odd way it does things I can't. Pretty useless for how I have setup to get alerts right away.
 
People hating on the app but I love that it actually works with having the icon number show the correct current unread e-mails. I use iCloud.com constantly at work and it always drove me mad on iOS there remains a "1" when I had read the e-mail on my work computer yet the iPhone wouldn't update. I think same thing happened possibly when I read an e-mail on my MacBook Pro. On the iPhone lock screen the e-mail would stay open showing a preview when you had already ready it elsewhere. Such an annoying bug.
 
silvetti said:
This app is useless on most big sized companies for security reasons.

You can read about it here:
https://blog.winkelmeyer.com/2015/0...ook-app-for-ios-breaks-your-company-security/
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No offense, but that's pretty old and no longer relevant, and was - at the time - bordering on FUD. I did read that "news" at the time and found none of it to be fully accurate, at the time, and even less so now. I did read the Accompli privacy policy at the time, and again after MS purchased/rebranded the app and I felt that the privacy policy was pretty clear, and chose to not use the app and opt to review it again. I did appreciate the - in my words and opinion - "chicken little" perspective that Winkelmeyer and others took at the time, but IMHO the Accompli app was not new in its approach as iOS device owners including myself use many apps that transmit and store credentials; I read the privacy policy and decide whether it works for me, and I don't understand why anyone wouldn't read a TOS/privacy policy before using something. While Winkelmeyer may have had good intentions, a read of the privacy policy would have cleared up concerns of potential users as it did for me.

That written, I own two Exchange Servers and also use Office 365 for Business. I read MS's own technical, and regularly updated, documentation - start here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt684947(v=exchg.160).aspx - and the link at the bottom provides one on a far-more-detailed background. I have now used and also monitor the activities of the app, and it's performing exactly as how MS has described in their TechNet documentation, and have no concerns at this point with the new app. No FUD intended…

To be fair, my only concern about this type of app remains - the ability to disable remote images, as one can do with the stock Mail app. A fair counter here is that once one gets a spam email to an account, it's pretty much game over now that you're on a spambot list…
 
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AstroAtom said:
Yes, but it it still only for Office 365 right now.
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That's not what you wrote in your OP, and FWIW two of my Outlook Cloud Services (Outlook.com) accounts that have been ported from AWS to the Azure platform have the Trello and Evernote add-ins available already. I'm not prone to surmising, and I offered MS's position on this matter - where's your citation?
 
campyguy said:
No offense, but that's pretty old and no longer relevant, and was - at the time - bordering on FUD. I did read that "news" at the time and found none of it to be fully accurate, at the time, and even less so now.

...

I read MS's own technical, and regularly updated, documentation - start here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/mt684947(v=exchg.160).aspx - and the link at the bottom provides one on a far-more-detailed background. I have now used and also monitor the activities of the app, and it's performing exactly as how MS has described in their TechNet documentation
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I don't get it. The linked blog post's main beef is with Microsoft's server storing your credentials and your mails. Your link to Microsoft documentation confirms that this is so. They say that it's safe and yadda yadda, but you have to trust that.

So, why do you call it "FUD"?

If you want to trust it, great for you, but I can perfectly see how another company or individual might want not to trust it. You know, this is Microsoft we're talking about here.
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benface said:
It's like they couldn't decide between "add-on" and "plugin" so they settled on "add-in". Do we really need another word for that? Jesus ****ing Christ.
Click to expand...

Wait for "extension"... or "complement"... ;)
 
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mijail said:
I don't get it. The linked blog post's main beef is with Microsoft's server storing your credentials and your mails. Your link to Microsoft documentation confirms that this is so. They say that it's safe and yadda yadda, but you have to trust that.

So, why do you call it "FUD"?

If you want to trust it, great for you, but I can perfectly see how another company or individual might want not to trust it. You know, this is Microsoft we're talking about here.
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You have your opinion, I have mine. As I indicated earlier, I did read the Privacy Policy of MS's use of the Accompli-ported app, and I passed on it then - it's not the same app any longer and IMHO Winkelmeyer's "articles" are no longer relevant and applicable to the app in its current state…

The version of the app that the linked-to "article" described the initial version of the Outlook app - the re-branded Accompli app, and it hasn't been updated to reflect that the subsequent versions of the Outlook application now correctly enforce PIN/passcode requirements. Yes, I checked, and it does - that led me to express that the linked-to post by Winkelmeyer is, at this point in the app's development, FUD. It was written in January 2015 with the second update in February 2015, but not updated with a link (if there is a follow up later than 2/15) to reflect that the Outlook app was updated in June 2015 with new access and security controls (including OAuth and ADAL-based authentication options - OAuth for Office 365) and better control and management tools on the backend. Cutting to it, that post you linked to may have been relevant at the time, but it's out of date and no longer relevant - to me. It may be relevant to you, and that's fine - IMHO there's quite a bit of work that's been done on the app and the backend that the linked-to Winkelmeyer post is moot IMO as in having no practical significance, relative to the app and it's security in it's current state. I also don't agree with you in that my linked-to TechNet article reinforces Winkelmeyer's posts in that MS has completely re-engineered the app's security (including OAuth for Outlook.com, OneDrive, Dropbox, Box and Gmail). There's more to the app's security that just that TechNet article. Cheers.
 
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