Forum Discussion
New Outlook Issues
Your concerns are valid, and it is not uncommon for users to have strong reactions to changes that impact their workflow and user experience.
It is important for software companies to balance innovation and updates with the needs and preferences of their users. While companies like Microsoft often aim to streamline their applications and provide a consistent experience across different platforms, it is clear that not all users appreciate or benefit from these changes.
User feedback, like yours, plays a crucial role in shaping the direction of software development. If you're encountering issues or finding the new experience less productive, consider providing feedback through official channels, such as Microsoft's user feedback platforms, or contacting their customer support directly. Your feedback can contribute to future improvements and potentially influence how Microsoft addresses these concerns.
Remember that software companies strive to address the diverse needs of their user base, which can be a challenging task. Preferences vary, and while some users may appreciate the new web-based approach, others might find it less efficient for their specific use cases.
In the meantime, if the new experience is not meeting your needs, you might want to explore alternative tools or workflows that better align with your preferences and requirements. Additionally, staying updated with software releases and updates can sometimes reveal improvements or solutions to existing issues.
Thank you for your time and patience.
NikolinoDE Thank you for taking the time to craft such a well thought response to my post. Unfortunately there aren’t alternatives.
I work in the IT space for my employer and as you might be aware, most corporations get Outlook bundled with their M365 suite of software and services. The bean counters don’t know the difference and they aren’t going to invest in a separate, paid service, when they are paying for M365 suite and it comes with an email client.
All of that said, we both know that New Outlook isn’t an email client. Webmail in an application container, is webmail. That’s not Microsoft finding a balance either. Microsoft is a trillion dollar outfit with an Outlook problem. The question is, “what to do with a nearly thirty year old email client that has tons of feature but years of cruft”? The answer is to find a build a native client from the ground up that can do all of the basic email requirements that a non-power user needs and balance what power users need at launch. Then you can add features by expanding your native build.
But spaghetti code is easier to string together. And developers for web technology are comparatively cheaper. I think the idea here is that one code base is also easier to deploy quickly. That might be true enough, but most pros don’t like webmail. It’s good enough in a pinch, but it’ll never be good enough as a daily driver. Not even with 100% feature parity. Because we aren’t at the place where HTML/CSS/JS can run in browser or in a wrapper and not behave like a website. You can’t resize Teams (or slack for that matter) down the way you can any native chat client. The columns can only size so far down and have readable content. This is a web limitation. Buttons and filter tabs can’t be tiny and yet 100% accurate so you have to make them larger and they waste space. Information populates at what is just on the verge of near instantaneous, but still slowly enough that you know its webcode even if it’s not waiting to load back from a server. And the file handling, like attachment previews and downloads behaves as it does in a web browser. Maybe they can fix that, but I’m not sure they can. And look at the search position and side rails in Outlook. Why are those thing there when it wastes tons of space? That’s to be inline with the Outlook.com layout.
But there’s much more that you just aren’t going to get from an application for say Windows that’s coded in C for example than just loading React Native with some version of code from Outlook.com. But you can pair back the number of developers. You can trim down time spent in development and you can apparently produce an inferior product as a result and still charge the same amount to your customer.
But TLDR, the bottom line is that if I’m doing a job for you and you’re paying me, then I need to make sure my service is right. If I’m selling something that’s out of date or needs an overhaul then my job should be to start from the ground up if that’s what it takes to make it right. And I should give you the equivalent of what you had before if I’m going to charge you the same amount for it.
I intensely dislike those "Try..." buttons in Microsoft products because I know that at some point "try" is going to dumped into a mandatory Windows Update. I also dislike web mail, but it appears they rewarded the person who thought changing the yellow Outlook icon of decades to a blue icon to be confused with the Word icon, has been rewarded by promotion to Outlook "Redesigner".
Here's a suggestion: Every time you have a "Try" button, also have a "Dislike/Like" voting option and go with the majority vote. Let your customer base inform you of desired changes.
I stayed with Windows 7 through the Windows 8 mess. Windows 10 did not encourage me to switch at home, after using it at work. I only changed to Windows 10 this year (2023) because Google Chrome stopped updating their browser for Windows 7. I had to set up Windows 11 on a relative's new home PC and things were "rearranged" and "optimized" for maximum aggravation. I'm thinking when the October 2025 deadline for Windows 10 comes up, I might consider installing some flavor of Linux and Open Office, to save money. If forced to use web mail, I might as well use Google Mail at home for free.
Please leave the Office applications features, look and feel alone. Improve security in the underlying code, add a "do you want this" feature under the View menu that will display new features to the right of the menu if the corresponding box is checked. If you want more revenue, increase the subscription fees, but stop trashing the functionality in the name of "improving" the product.
