Microsoft is preparing an update for its Outlook email service that will solve an unnecessary headache for iOS users.
As explained in a new entry to the company’s product roadmap, Outlook for iOS will soon allow users to choose whether to share images as attachments or embed them in the message body.
Historically, the only available option has been to embed images within messages, with obvious effects on readability, especially when attempting to send multiple photos at once.
Microsoft Outlook update
Microsoft Outlook has for many years been a central part of people’s professional and personal lives, but the way the service is consumed has changed over time. Increasingly, people access their email on mobile platforms, a trend likely accelerated by the transition to hybrid working.
It follows, then, that the iOS and Android versions of Outlook should be equipped with identical functionality to the desktop application. In some instances, the smaller screen real estate means this is not feasible, but the inability to attach photos to email messages on mobile is tough to explain.
Scheduled to roll out by the end of June, the upcoming Outlook update will at least remedy the issue for Apple customers, making it easier to send multiple photos (either from the local gallery or cloud storage) without impacting the reading experience.
TechRadar Pro has asked Microsoft whether Android users can expect to benefit from a similar update in the near future.
Beyond the image attachments upgrade, Microsoft has been busy working on a significant overhaul for Outlook on Windows 11. Referred to as “One Outlook”, the new-look email client is designed to unify the company’s various productivity tools - email, calendaring, to-do lists etc. - under a single platform.
The client also features deeper support for Microsoft Loop, a service that lets users collaborate on portable data widgets across Microsoft 365 apps.
The eventual goal is probably to bring One Outlook to all major platforms, which would address the current discrepancies in user experience across desktop and mobile.
