Microsoft Rebrands Acompli, Relaunches As Outlook For Android And iOS
Microsoft Outlook is finally coming to iOS and Android – but in actually, we should really say that Acompli is coming to iOS and Android. Microsoft bought Acompli back in early December, and hailed the app, which “provides innovative ways to focus on what’s important in your inbox, to schedule meetings, and work with attachments and files.” Microsoft promised to take the best of what had been built into Acompli and combine it with the work already undertaken by its existing Outlook team.
Outlook's calendar integration
What we now have is a rebranded app that carries the Outlook name and gives users a powerful email and calendaring tool. It supports most major email services including Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, Outlook.com, Exchange, and Office 365. And despite the fact that it is now a Microsoft product, it still includes Acompli functionality like Google Drive integration and Dropbox support. That last feature inclusion shouldn’t be too surprising considering Microsoft’s ongoing partnership with Dropbox, but the latter did raise my eyebrow.
Outlook for iOS and Android includes customizable swipe gestures, which allows you to quickly sort through a cluttered inbox. Swiping left on a message allows you to perform actions like delete, archive, schedule, and mark as read/unread. Outlook also includes predictive search to allow you to quickly find content and includes powerful calendar integration right within the app.
Outlook may be a straight rebranded app for right now, but don’t expect the app to stay that way. The Outlook team plans to work its magic on the app and make it better over time. “We will be iterating quickly to bring new features to Outlook, shipping new versions of the app every few weeks,” said the Office Team via the official Office Blog. “We’ll add user-focused features that help you get even more done while on the go, and we’ll also expand the capabilities that matter to IT, such as mobile device management.”
