Microsoft's Outlook for Android app out of preview; now available on Google Play Store

After releasing Outlook for iOS and a preview of Outlook for Android in January this year, Microsoft has now rolled out the official out-of-preview app for all Android users. The app is now available for download from Google Play Store . Since the initial preview release in January, the app was updated 17 times. The main focus was to improvise on performance, stability, localisation and ‘other fit and finish pieces’. According to Outlook’s blog , the new email app comes with more features than its preview debut. In terms of design, the app adopts an improved look wherein the icon sets have been updated and also, the fonts have been simplified to provide a more consistent Outlook experience across operating systems and devices. Common Android design principles like the Navigation Drawer and settings available in the App Overflow menu have also been added. Users can also sync their mail from email providers that support IMAP. In other features, users can now find contact details for someone in their company even if they are not saved as a contact. Outlook integrates a user’s full organisational directory (Global Address List or GAL) in the People section and the email compose experience. The ’top contacts’ view has been replaced with a unified view of contacts from all email accounts. Another noticeable feature in Outlook for Android is the built-in calendar feature that alerts users about appointments. [caption id=“attachment_264636” align=“aligncenter” width=“500”] Image: Outlook Blog[/caption] The new app also brings in customised swipe gestures. Swipe right or left to take actions like archive, delete, move, flag, mark as read/unread or schedule. Outlook also allows users to personalise swipe gestures to match their unique email habits. Users can change their default folders for the Archive and Schedule swipe gestures by going to Settings > Choose an account > Advanced Settings > System Folders. Outlook for Android, which runs on Android 4.0 and above, is available in all markets supported by the Google Play Store. The Outlook user interface is translated in 30 languages: English, Norwegian (Bokmål), Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.