The Microsoft Outlook mobile app (officially known as Outlook for Android and Outlook for iOS) is a
mobile
Mobile may refer to:
Places
* Mobile, Alabama, a U.S. port city
* Mobile County, Alabama
* Mobile, Arizona, a small town near Phoenix, U.S.
* Mobile, Newfoundland and Labrador
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Groups and labels
* Mobile ( ...
personal information manager
A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...
(PIM) for
Android and
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
devices.
The app provides unified communication functionality, as opposed to splitting
email
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
,
calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a physi ...
, and contact management functionality into multiple, focused apps the way
Windows 10 Mobile
Windows 10 Mobile is a discontinued mobile operating system developed by Microsoft. First released in 2015, it is a successor to Windows Phone 8.1, but was marketed by Microsoft as being an edition of its PC operating system Windows 10.
Wind ...
's apps. Similar to its
desktop counterpart, Outlook Mobile offers an aggregation of attachments and files stored on
cloud storage
Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is t ...
platforms; a "focused inbox" highlights messages from frequent contacts, and calendar events, files, and locations can be embedded in messages without switching apps. The app supports a number of email platforms and services, including
Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 is a product family of productivity software, collaboration and cloud-based services owned by Microsoft. It encompasses online services such as Outlook.com, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams, programs formerly marketed under the name Mic ...
,
Exchange Online
Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.
The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...
,
Exchange Server
Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.
The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...
,
Outlook.com
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
, third parties like
G Suite
Google Workspace (formerly known as Google Apps and later G Suite) is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet a ...
among others.
First released in April 2014 by the
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
-backed
startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
Acompli, the company was acquired by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
in December 2014 for over
US$
The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...
200 million. On January 29, 2015, Acompli was re-branded as Outlook Mobile—sharing its name with Microsoft's desktop PIM
Outlook
Outlook or The Outlook may refer to:
Computing
* Microsoft Outlook, an e-mail and personal information management software product from Microsoft
* Outlook.com, a web mail service from Microsoft
* Outlook on the web, a suite of web applications ...
and its
Outlook.com
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
email service.
The following month, Microsoft acquired the mobile calendar app
Sunrise Calendar
Sunrise is a discontinued electronic calendar application for mobile and desktop. The service was launched in 2013 by designers Pierre Valade and Jeremy Le Van. In October 2015, Microsoft announced that they had merged the Sunrise Calendar team in ...
; its key features were similarly subsumed by Outlook Mobile in September 2016.
History
Acompli was co-founded as a
startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
by
Javier Soltero
Javier Soltero is a Puerto Rican entrepreneur and executive. Previously, he was the Corporate Vice President advisor to Rajesh Jha at Microsoft. Prior to Microsoft, he was co-founder and CEO of Acompli, after being an Entrepreneur-in-Residence a ...
, the former
chief technology officer of
VMWare
VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture.
VMware's desktop software ru ...
, alongside
JJ Zhuang
JJ Zhuang () is a VP of Engineering at Instacart. With Kevin Henrikson as his business counterpart, he cofounded Acompli, the most broadly used email mobile and calendar client app for iPhone. Acompli was acquired by Microsoft at a price of $20 ...
(
CTO), and
Kevin Henrikson
Kevin Henrikson is a San Francisco-based engineer, speaker, and investor. Henrikson has worked for or headed several companies, such as Zimbra, Alpha Brand Media and Acompli.
Career
Henrikson earned his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineer ...
(VP of Engineering). It received $7.3 million in funding from Redpoint Ventures, Harrison Metal and Felicis Ventures.
To distinguish Acompli from other recent email startups (such as
Mailbox), Soltero decided to target the enterprise market: he felt that such users had been underserved by mail apps with limited or no support for
Microsoft Exchange Server
Microsoft Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server developed by Microsoft. It runs exclusively on Windows Server operating systems.
The first version was called Exchange Server 4.0, to position it as the successor to the related ...
, despite its wide use in such environments. A result of this mandate was the decision to make the app a
personal information manager
A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...
rather than only an email client, integrating a calendar, a list of recent contacts, and a list of recent files from attachments and
cloud storage
Cloud storage is a model of computer data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, said to be on "the cloud". The physical storage spans multiple servers (sometimes in multiple locations), and the physical environment is t ...
services.
Acompli was first released on April 25, 2014 for
iOS
iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
.
An
Android version was released in September 2014.
On November 26, 2014, an incomplete post on its official blog prematurely revealed that Acompli had been acquired by
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
. The acquisition, valued at over $200 million (~$ in ), was officially announced on December 1, 2014. Rajesh Jha, vice president of Microsoft's Outlook division, stated that "We’re excited about what’s possible as we build on the app’s success and bring it together with work currently in progress by the Outlook team." Soltero assured users that the Acompli app would not be discontinued, and would continue to receive regular updates.
On January 29, 2015, Acompli was re-branded as Outlook Mobile, uniting it with one of its original influences.
[
On February 4, 2015, Microsoft acquired ]Sunrise Calendar
Sunrise is a discontinued electronic calendar application for mobile and desktop. The service was launched in 2013 by designers Pierre Valade and Jeremy Le Van. In October 2015, Microsoft announced that they had merged the Sunrise Calendar team in ...
; the app was discontinued on September 13, 2016, with features from Sunrise (such as icons to identify types of events, and its date and time selection interface) concurrently being added to Outlook Mobile.
Features
Outlook Mobile is designed to consolidate functionality that would normally be found in separate apps on mobile devices, similarly to personal information manager
A personal information manager (often referred to as a PIM tool or, more simply, a PIM) is a type of application software that functions as a personal organizer. The acronym PIM is now, more commonly, used in reference to personal information manag ...
s on personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s. is designed around four "hubs" for different tasks, including "Mail", "Calendar," "Files" and "People". The "People" hub lists frequently and recently used contacts and aggregates recent communications with them, and the "Files" hub aggregates recent attachments from messages, and can also integrate with other online storage services such as Dropbox
Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by the American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, U.S. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and Client (computing), client software. Dropb ...
, Google Drive
Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addi ...
, and OneDrive
Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting service operated by Microsoft. First launched in August 2007, it enables registered users to share and synchronize their files. OneDrive also works as the storage backend of the web ver ...
. To facility indexing of content for search and other features, emails and other information are stored on external servers.
Outlook Mobile supports a large number of different e-mail services and platforms, including Exchange
Exchange may refer to:
Physics
*Gas exchange is the movement of oxygen and carbon dioxide molecules from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Places United States
* Exchange, Indiana, an unincorporated community
* ...
, iCloud
iCloud is a Personal cloud, cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016.
iCloud enables users to sync their data to t ...
, GMail
Gmail is a free email service provided by Google. As of 2019, it had 1.5 billion active users worldwide. A user typically accesses Gmail in a web browser or the official mobile app. Google also supports the use of email clients via the POP an ...
, G Suite
Google Workspace (formerly known as Google Apps and later G Suite) is a collection of cloud computing, productivity and collaboration tools, software and products developed and marketed by Google. It consists of Gmail, Contacts, Calendar, Meet a ...
, Outlook.com
Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services.
Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...
, and Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is an email service launched on October 8, 1997, by the American company Yahoo (2017–present), Yahoo, Inc. The service is free for personal use, with an optional monthly fee for additional features. Business email was previously av ...
. The app supports multiple email accounts at once.[
Emails are divided into two inboxes: the "Focused" inbox displays messages of high importance, and those from frequent contacts. All other messages are displayed within an "Other" section.] Files, locations, and calendar events can be embedded into email messages. Swiping gestures can be used for deleting messages.
Like the desktop Outlook, Outlook Mobile allows users to see appointment details, respond to Exchange meeting invites, and schedule meetings. It also incorporates the three-day view and "Interesting Calendars" features from Sunrise.
Files in the Files tab are not stored offline; they require Internet access to view.
Security
Outlook Mobile temporarily stores and indexes user data (including email, attachments, calendar information, and contacts), along with login credentials, in a "secure" form on Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...
servers located in the United States. On Exchange accounts, these servers identify as a single Exchange ActiveSync
Exchange ActiveSync (commonly known as EAS) is a proprietary protocol designed for the synchronization of email, contacts, calendar, tasks, and notes from a messaging server to a smartphone or other mobile devices. The protocol also provides mobi ...
user in order to fetch e-mail. Additionally, the app does not support mobile device management
Mobile device management (MDM) is the administration of mobile devices, such as smartphones, tablet computers, and laptops. MDM is usually implemented with the use of a third-party product that has management features for particular vendors of m ...
, nor allows administrators to control how third-party cloud storage services are used with the app to interact with their users. Concerns surrounding these security issues have prompted some firms, including the European Parliament
The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts ...
, to block the app on their Exchange servers. Microsoft maintains a separate, pre-existing Outlook Web Access
Outlook on the web (previously known as Exchange Web Connect, Outlook Web Access, and Outlook Web App) is a personal information manager web app from Microsoft. It includes a web-based email client, a calendar tool, a contact manager, and a ta ...
app for Android and iOS.[
]
Reception
Acompli received mostly positive reception: James Kendrick of ''ZDNet
ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures.
The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication.
Hist ...
'' considered the app a "must-have" for bring your own device
Bring your own device (BYOD )—also called bring your own technology (BYOT), bring your own phone (BYOP), and bring your own personal computer (BYOPC)—refers to being allowed to use one's personally owned device, rather than being required to u ...
scenarios, citing its focused inbox, convergence, and support for both personal and business-oriented e-mail platforms. However, he felt that the calendar was not "fancy", and lacked different view modes. Noting its level of support for Gmail, quicker deletion gesture, along with its "clean approach" to filtering through emails and other content, ''Engadget
''Engadget'' ( ) is a multilingual technology blog network with daily coverage of gadgets and consumer electronics. ''Engadget'' manages ten blogs four of which are written in English and six have international versions with independent editori ...
'' argued that Acompli "can be a speedy and powerful tool if you're willing to take the time to learn its nuances."
On the day of its release, Acompli quickly reached the top 10 free "Productivity" apps on the iOS App Store
The App Store is an app store platform, developed and maintained by Apple Inc., for mobile apps on its iOS and iPadOS operating systems. The store allows users to browse and download approved apps developed within Apple's iOS Software Deve ...
.
See also
*List of most downloaded Android applications
This list of most-downloaded Google Play applications includes most of the free apps that have been downloaded more than 500 million times, and most of the paid apps that have been downloaded more than one million times on unique Android devices ...
* Mailbox
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Aggregators
Android (operating system) software
Email clients
IOS software
Microsoft email software
Microsoft Office
Personal information managers
Calendaring software
Microsoft acquisitions
Freeware
Proprietary software