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Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

blogs.office.com

231–240 of 341 posts

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#231

Google is asleep at the wheel. This makes them look bad. Gmail blew the doors off every other webmail client when it launched 5 years ago but it's time for a rewrite. The fact that they used Gmail mobile as their "Gmail Offline" product in Chrome tells me that the current client can't be modernized. I only hope that is what the Sparrow guys are going to be working on, because Microsoft isn't the company you would exp…

Gmail was only launched 5 years ago? I'm almost positive I had gmail at least in mid 2004.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#232

In terms of UI, the differences vs gmail seem trivial and possibly in the wrong direction. The three column format is identical; it is mainly cleaner because it removes useful features: inline email text preview, a prominent search box, navigation to other frequently used services, e.g. drive. On first glance sparse designs look better, but for frequently used software people tend to like the greater data density in…

There's a navigation bar to other services (click on the chevron next to the "Outlook" title). It's just less prominent and 2 clicks instead of one. Which I think is the right tradeoff, as wanting to navigate to another service isn't as common as Google would like it to be.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlook's url seems to be on the live.com domain... confusing at best. Let's make a comparison of url's from the "home" view: New Outlook (wtf): https://bay002.mail.live.com/default.aspx Gmail (better, could be cleaner): https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox

Does the URL really matter that much? I agree it's not unimportant, but I don't think it's a big deal. The program itself is much more important

It matters from a security perspective. A bad or inconsistent URL, especially a hostname that isn't instantly recognizable, makes phishing easier.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#234
post #72

We haven't instantly forgotten how Microsoft handles Skydrive, have we?: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265086 I think I'll pass on putting my email through their systems. Although I have to admit this looks way better than GMail. I hope this inspires Google to do something about their interface design.

I know I haven't. It's more than just one "whoopsie" though. It happened with Windows Live messenger and TPB before. It's happening with Skype, and all the non-transparency regarding to what type of agencies they give user data, how easily they do that, and so on.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#235
post #218
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You needn't look any farther than Hotmail to grow wary of the merits of their new service. And there's the whole Skype brouhaha. Microsoft have an edge over Google in that they aren't perceived to be as morally bankrupt, when it comes to privacy and protecting their users (because they earn their money elsewhere), but with the Skype criticism, that may be subject to change. It's a nice flank of attack to use against…

Not trying to be smug, but I bet you're younger than 30, if you can say that with a straight face.

Suppose we move 20 years forward. Are we going to see this type of comment regardless of what the company would be at that time? "No way, man! I bet you're younger than 50, if you... " Do you really think that ghosts from the past need to haunt people's minds for that long regardless of how the state of the world has changed? I perceive none of MS and Google as being protective of their users or respectful of said users privacy. Nonetheless, when we speak of events that have anything to do with morals, I guess we have to take into consideration the time that has passed since those events have happened, since both the morals and the scene could have changed dramatically.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#236
There is currently a bug that I stumbled across that allows for spoofed emails to be sent.

If you have a Live account that has an external e-mail address Microsoft allows you to login here, without any additional authentication credentials, and actually will send e-mails using the account's original address. In my case this was my Gmail address.

Overall the requirement of Silverlight is a little annoying, but the same as usual for Microsoft. The UI itself doesn't look bad, and I actually prefer it to generic Gmail theme.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#237
post #72

We haven't instantly forgotten how Microsoft handles Skydrive, have we?: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4265086 I think I'll pass on putting my email through their systems. Although I have to admit this looks way better than GMail. I hope this inspires Google to do something about their interface design.

Hmmm, I'm not a fan of the outlook.com design in any what so ever. The fonts are messy, the buttons are in all the wrong places, the icons don't mean anything to me.

It feels like a weekend hackathon project not a commercial enterprise.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#238
There is currently a bug that I stumbled across that allows for spoofed emails to be sent.

If you have a Live account that has an external e-mail address Microsoft allows you to login here, without any additional authentication credentials, and actually will send e-mails using the account's original address. In my case this was my Gmail address.

Overall the requirement of Silverlight is a little annoying, but the same as usual for Microsoft. The UI itself doesn't look bad, and I actually prefer it to generic Gmail theme.

Re: Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

#239
post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You needn't look any farther than Hotmail to grow wary of the merits of their new service. And there's the whole Skype brouhaha. Microsoft have an edge over Google in that they aren't perceived to be as morally bankrupt, when it comes to privacy and protecting their users (because they earn their money elsewhere), but with the Skype criticism, that may be subject to change. It's a nice flank of attack to use against…

because they earn their money elsewhere ? This is a terribly odd statement. Microsoft has shown, time and time again, that they can shaft their customers because many of them have, or at least had, few alternatives. Google might make a lot of its money on advertising, but it wouldn't make a penny if it didn't have the trust and respect of its customers.

Yes it would. Neither I nor anyone I know use Google because we trust or respect it, we use it because it works well.
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