Microsoft: Gmail rival Outlook.com will 'look good on your iPad' Microsoft has launched a successor to its venerable Hotmail web-based email service, in hopes that a revamped UI, integration with social networks, and tighter ties to the software giant's cloudy online services will woo users away from rivals, in particular Gmail. "We think the time is right to reimagine email," Microsoft's …
I was thinking something similar, I would want it to look super nice on my Surface tablet. But more importantly, I have been @hotmail for 15 years now and am more than happy with it, I will admit I pay £15 a year or something so its ad free and syncs with the Windows Live mail program.
I have visited outlook.com it looked okay, filled the wole screen, no ads down the right, again probably because I am paying for it, but now whenever I go to my hotmail account it now shows as the outlook.com page, although the address is still live.com.
Haven't they tried relaunching before with hotmail.co.uk? live.com and live.co.uk? Okay so they have a lot of different mail servers, but please leave my hotmail account alone, I had it before you came along and bought it all up!
Okay, I've moaned, I just don't like change.
oh, and I don't use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any other social media stuff, so please, can I just switch it all off and not be reminded about it ever, please? And yes Amazon you listen to that as well, I'm not bothered about telling everyone I just bought 50 shades of grey...oh...oops.
@Roger B: You can sync contacts et al with the Windows Live Mail desktop program without paying, and you get no ads in the desktop client. I've used it before with my Gmail account, and my contacts will still sync with my Windows Live ID/.NET Passport/whatever they're calling it now. Unfortunately, there's no synchronization between it and Gmail, but that's to be expected. That said, you can import from a CSV.
I use Hotmail and such quite a lot, just like I use Outlook 2010, so you'd assume I should like this.
Well, I think the whole setup is a very crude hack which is also quite annoying to work with.
I gave the new Outlook a try and well.. So far, so good. I have my folders, I have my quickviews. Not too nasty. And then I tried to access my SkyDrive which is also important to me. The switch screen looks awfull; a big black bar (1/5th of the screen at least) appears with 4 huge icons in it. Why couldn't those icons sit in my titlebar?
So I click SkyDrve and what do you know... All of a sudden you're taken back into the /old/ Hotmail interface and your SkyDrive folders appear.
That's not a new implementation of e-mail, that's a very crude and incomplete /hack/. IMO a stupid one at that.
I switched back right back to Hotmail. After all; I'll be moving back anyway whenever I access my SkyDrive or Calendar. They also "forgot" to port the online Messenger.
Sorry for 2 posts after one other, but look at what I got after switching back:
After moving back to Hotmail I was asked (pleaded?) to send feedback. Ok, we'll do that...
Pick a product:
"Calendar, Groups, Hotmail, Live@Edu, Messenger, Profile, SkyDrive" and the rest is all "Windows Live *". (Windows Live Account, Windows Live Events, etc.). I figured "Windows Live Mail" but all the welcome messages and welcome email calls the new interface "Outlook". ("Welcome to Outlook", "Get an Outlook email address", "Tell us what you think of Outlook").
So why can't I comment on a product called "Outlook" ?
Talk about a hack....
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/xgjrw/we_are_the_team_behind_the_new_outlookcom_service/
It's a bit gushy, but there are some decent answers to questions.
Me? I'll stick with a domain and a proper e-mail client.
Click new message...
1/3 of the left hand side of the screen is taken for the To: address. Great way to save space!
Your subject goes on the top, above the format tool bar.
Your message below.
Delete welcome message, and what appears in the empty inbox?
" Wow, you've got a very clean inbox! (Did you know you can receive messages from other email accounts?)"
Wow, that's very clever Microsoft, now piss off.
"According to Hall, some 17 per cent of the email messages a typical user receives today are updates from social networks."
That's odd. I get around a hundred legitimate emails each week, none of which are from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn et al, and well over a thousand that are spam. I'd rather they sorted out the spam problem before doing design updates.
Must be some nth dimensional warped reality where "Outlook" equates to a positive, uplifting rebrand designed to make more ad fodder users flock to the fold. Then again, it's Hotmail, favoured communications tool of Mrs Miriam Abacha, wife of the late Sani Abacha, so perhaps anything is 'up' from there.
Seems the ABMers and fanbois are out in force.
Sorry folks MS introduce a new thing, immediately the ABM/Linux/Fanbois have to post "well it's crap" posts regardless of what it is, it comes from Microsh1t type comments.
I tried it and it seemed like my outlook in a web page maybe I'm missing something. Maybe there is an advantage in moving to outlook.com but can't yet see it, I've had a hotmail account for donkeys years and don't suffer a spam problem, maybe one a week, perhaps not using your email account for sex sites has an advantage.
"...and it seemed like my outlook in a web page..."
For some of us, that's the whole problem in a nutshell. No need to be a zealot or sex fiend of any hue; prior exposure to Outlook will do nicely as a basis for "not for me, ever", although a billion desperate Microsoft re-launches certainly helps.
You might try assuming people think for themselves when they comment, rather than being stereotypes who always reflect marketing hype as opinion. It's less embarrassing.
You've hit the nail on the head. The rebrand (sorry: 'reimagine') is the big problem here, not the new interface.
Unless you're a plumber, people use webmail services to keep home and work lives separate. Ever seen someone checking a BlackBerry, and then their smartphone?
Forcing private users onto the brand name of probably the most hated/unstable corporate applications (which let's face it, virtually every major company is forced to use, thanks to Exchange's dominance) is a dead duck.
Face it : who _enjoys_ using Outlook? We dread it!
Almost as daft an idea as when PricewaterhouseCoopers blew $110m on rebranding their consulting arm as "Monday" - clearly the most hated day of the week - only to scrap the name a few days later.
I bet those at the Mountain View Chocolate Factory are pissing themselves laughing!
You're having a fucking laff aren't you?
I use Outlook and I enjoy using it - as do millions of other people around the world. I enjoy it becasue I don't notice it - it just works and it gets the job done in an efficient and reliable manner.
The people at Mountain View can be pissing in each other's mouths for all I care; this is an excellent update and one I can't wait to use full time.
"Unless you're a plumber, people use webmail services to keep home and work lives separate"
Normal people use their home PC for home email and their work PC for work email... Outlook is/was (not sure they even provide it for free now) very widely used with the masses who would struggle to find a webmail. The number of people using the email address provided by their ISP is evidence of this.
I have just tried it and I have to say that I like the interface a *lot* more than gmail which I use as my main email account. I agree with a previous poster though who says the switch between outlook and calendar or skydrive is clunky in the extreme. Still, I'm sure they will address those issues eventually.
Turned on my PC and reloaded my browsing session. Where the Outlook.com tab had been, there was now a Hotmail login page. So I entered my new Outlook address and password, signed in and saw Live.com flash up before I finished up back in Outlook again.
It looks like the bastard son of Hotmail and Gmail to me. But it was nice to get in early and snap up some decent addresses before they all went.
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