Poor mail, widgets; kiddie – Microsoft Outlook Review

Apple bought Acompli and cannibalized the mail app, proud of the “focused inbox” that other developers developed. Then, in July 2017, MS reworked the app giving us a clunky, busy, shelf apparatus that hides the number of emails in any Inbox and the folders. Asleep at the wheel, MS also replaced email account names with account icons so that, suddenly, your multiple Gmail accounts, for example, were indistinguishable from each other. Well, duh. Check out the dog-ugly solution. The app also is unprofessionally juvenile: e.g., an empty drafts folder says “start writing something fabulous.” Some writing is fabulous, but not emails. We also get the notice, “Nothing left to read, well played” — a junior-high grammar mistake called a comma splice. The calendar has childish icons, such as a mortar board with tassel, that appear when you have an appointment such as “eye exam.” Please. Please stop. The calendar — also a purchased app developed elsewhere, and cobbled together with the mail — improved when someone at MS awakened and gave us a monthly view; but bugs appear too. A current issue is that single, all-day events on the Apple calendar appear as two day events on the Outlook calendar. The awful phone widget selection gives only a few useless calendar options; and, the watch widget is slow and unhelpful. Outlook remains a Hannah Montana app not ready for professional work.
Review by drjwr on Microsoft Outlook.