Microsoft tweaks its 'New Outlook' for Mac – but no support for Exchange on-premises yet Microsoft has plugged some key gaps in its "new Outlook" for macOS, currently in preview and given a fresh update just a few days ago, but the product still has puzzling omissions that drive users back to the old version. The revised Mac Outlook was first revealed at the Ignite event in late 2019. It appears to be a complete …
The inbox screenshot shows only 11 messages in that view. I get that many messages in a minute. Unless they’ve added the ability to have one message in the inbox list take up a single line of text, while having the reading pane open on the right, they’ve done nothing for the long suffering user experience. (Imagine seeing 50 messages in that list, using the familiar “details view” table paradigm. You know, with columns...)
The author laments the UI in Outlook on Windows, but its bevy of options affords customization which can be very important for people with email-heavy workflows.
It is insane to imagine that Borkzilla would make a mail client these days and choose not to include protocols that have been used since the dawn of email. It's not like POP3 and IMAP are nebulous, abstract things you need an engineering degree to grasp. Who signed off on this nonsense ?
And, as for the new UI to come, I wouldn't put too much stock in it. We're talking about the company that made Metro, remember ?
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
If they kill off protocol in their client what's the chance you'll use a non-exchange server? What's the chance you would migrate to another system?
This is why I don't do MS. They have so much monopoly power that serving the customer is not really a requirement.
One of the core reasons why we opted for Mac desktops is Apple's long term support for Open Standards in most of its built-in applications, IMAP, SMTP, carddav, caldav. Yes, there's the occasional hiccup and I haven't checked if they fixed their painfully slow webdav implementation as we have worked around that, but in general it ensures a peaceful coexistence with Linux.
Outlook's ONLY support for an open standard is a grudging implementation of POP/IMAP/SMTP, probably because that allows them to slurp data from other mail services (only kidding, of course). Eventually we gave up and abandoned it, which was pretty much the last thing that tied us to Office 365 in general. We don't have the sort of deep Excel needs that would be the only other argument for MS Office, so it's now LibreOffice all the way - also because that now can handle the sort of VFB sheets that previously required Excel (vfb = very effing big).
I'm not sure we'd be able to contain the MS addicts if Outlook supported Open Standards, because then its integration of calendar, address book and mail would be a much stronger argument so, from our perspective, MS has shot itself in the foot. It saves us quite a bit :).
Sounds like this may be heading the way the more recent version of Skype started; something was released that "looked pretty", with the (necessary) functionality being added by future updates (it only now nearly has everything back in, but is still not as usable as it was).
One of my Minions(™) (now all I need is a hollowed-out volcano and a white Persian cat) paid a visit deep, deep, DEEP within the Borg Collective and reports that one of the Insiders chained to the rowing bench said that IMAP works. No word about POP3, but if IMAP works, that and SMTP should also work--unless they are truly mad in the bowels of The Beast. I have not myself tried it, nor will I run it if IMAP takes a hike.
May I sugest that others venture inside the Collective (take plenty of phasers) and report on conditions. Frankly, removing POP/IMAP/SMTP is _exactly_ what I expect from the Borg.
A second Insider has raised his head above the parapet, but this one says, with a screenshot to back it up, that the 'new' Outlook supports only Outlook.com, Office 365 (presumably including Microsoft 365, because even the Beast wouldn't block their own, would they?) and 'Google' (presumably Gmail) accounts. Users who have any other type of account, including Apple iCloud accounts, may revert to the 'old' (that is, working properly) Outlook. The default is to push onwards into the brave new world without IMAP, POP, or SMTP. Or, Exchange Server. You'll notice that Exchange Server is NOT on the list of supported tech. The Borg _is_ blocking their own.
I join everyone else is saying: not on my machines. Kiss these (about 200) accounts good-bye, Borg.
I think that they pulled POP, IMAP, and SMTP support deliberately and with malice aforethought. I think that their reward should be fewer sales.
I get by with a very vanilla email client and I'm just fine. I take pains to limit the amount of email I get by creating throw away accounts I can use to verify with some web site to get free goodies and they delete it when they start sending me a dozen ads per day and "share" my address with their "partners". Translated to "sell their list to everybody with a few quid to spare".
I've had to use Outlook at on job and found it tedious. From the outside, it seems that on a regular basis somebody's Outlook client is hacked to send out a bog wodge of phishing attacks. I'm good at spotting those since I don't even trust people I know, but worry about my old mom. I visited her the other day and I ran down the list of current phishing email and I'm happy to report she spotted them all, whew. It's good test to see how she's doing. I don't expect a big inheritance but I don't want to get a call that she's been robbed of her savings and needs to move in with me.
Three questions immediately spring to mind. Will they have fixed:
1. Global address lists... Changes to this can sometimes take days to reach connected Mac clients. Microsoft's own Mac support subject matter experts claim that they don't even know how this works!
2. Drag and drop of events in the calendar. In the Windows version it is easy enough to reschedule or create new meetings, based on previous one, simply by right-click dragging the even to a new day and then telling the context menu to move or copy the event there. The current Mac version of Calendar is just pitiful and simply won't do even something so basic as this
3. Formatting of text between Windows and Mac clients getting screwed up, in Calendar? Even for the same user accessing the same account. Open and edit the text in a Calendar event on either platform, then go and look at it on the other platform and the formatting gets all screwed up. Yes folks, this is simple text formatting on the same email system and even the same account?
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