Microsoft has simplified the synchronization architecture used to connect Outlook mobile clients to Exchange. The new approach sets the scene for some new functionality, like support for S/MIME and access to shared mailboxes. It's all good and it marks the continued progress of Outlook mobile since the Acompli acquisition in 2014.
Companies that move to Office 365 have to decide what mobile email client to use. A native client that uses Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) or Outlook? In the past, the best choice was probably something like the iOS mail app. Now, Outlook is the focus of Microsoft’s mobile efforts and it’s where all the new functionality appears. EAS is still valuable, just less so than it was before.
Apple released iOS 11 and found that the mail app cannot connect to Exchange Online or Exchange 2016. It’s all to do with HTTP2 connections. Apple tries to connect via ActiveSync but doesn’t do so the way that Exchange likes, or something like that. In any case, maybe now’s the time to consider Outlook for iOS.
Office 365 allows you to block a user when necessary, as when someone is leaving the organization. You can also initiate a forced sign-out, but the option to do so is buried in the user’s OneDrive for Business settings, which seems like a logical place to find it!
My transition to an iPhone is fine and I have mastered Outlook for iOS. That is, except for Contacts, which are a problem because Outlook must obey Apple’s rules. And I won’t even discuss searching.
Changing from one mobile platform to another can be interesting. I went from Windows 10 Mobile to iOS and so far, no major damage is done. Some interesting differences exist in how Outlook for iOS and Outlook mobile synchronize email to devices. I wanted to learn more, so I poked and found out why the differences exist.
Microsoft is introducing safety tips to Office 365 to highlight bad or suspicious email that might tempt users to do things that they shouldn’t. The initiative is good and valuable, but it rather loses some of its gloss because not all safety tips are exposed in Outlook. However, Microsoft is making sure that mobile and other clients see safety tips, even if not in the same interactive manner as is possible with OWA.
The world of Office 365 is ever-changing. This week my attention was distracted by the inability of the Admin Center to report unlicensed accounts, a Watson dump in an ActiveSync cmdlet, some interesting data about the number of Office 365 users affected by outages as revealed through an API, and more odd entries in the Audit Log. Thankfully Ignite is next week and nothing will happen.
By the time Microsoft Ignite happens in September 2016, the Outlook app for iOS and Android will have an all-Microsoft infrastructure. The Amazon-based cache is being replaced by a new architecture that is shared by Exchange Online, Exchange on-premises and non-Microsoft email servers like Gmail. It’s a big change and it’s happening now.
Mobile Messaging is one of the hottest trends in messaging today. In this article, Brien Posey explains how to resolve a common error that may occur when synchronizing a Windows Mobile device to an Exchange 2007 server.