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Microsoft Outlook has been available on Android phones and tablets for a while now, but an optimized version is in development that will work better on lower-end devices.
The official roadmap for Microsoft 365 states that ‘Outlook Lite for Android’ is planned to roll out worldwide sometime in July 2022, as noted ZDNet. Roadmap is light on details (pardon the pun), with Microsoft only describing it as “an Android app that brings the core benefits of Outlook in a smaller app size with fast performance for web-light devices.” any network.
Microsoft Outlook Lite is now available on the Google Play Store in select countries, including Turkey and Mexico, and the app’s page has more details on what to expect. The current version of Outlook Lite has email, calendar, and contacts built in, but it has a much smaller download size of around 5 MB (the normal Android app is around 86 MB) and is optimized for devices that only have 1 MB. GB of RAM. The app already has 100,000 downloads in the regions where it is officially available.
The problem is that Outlook Lite only supports Microsoft’s own services: Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 accounts, and corporate Exchange servers. The regular Outlook app can sync with Gmail, iCloud, Yahoo Mail, and other third-party services. There are some other missing features like dark mode, syncing with device contacts, and event reminders. It’s unclear if any of those shortcomings will be addressed before this month’s global launch.
It’s common for popular apps and services to offer ‘Lite’ versions for low-end Android devices, mostly aimed at developing countries where flagship phones aren’t common and storage is in short supply. There’s Facebook Lite, Messenger Lite, and Skype Lite, to name a few. Google also has ‘Go’ versions of some apps designed for phones and tablets running Android Go, the custom version of Android found on most devices with 2GB of RAM or less.
The news comes as Microsoft is developing a new Outlook desktop app, which is currently in testing on Windows and will come to other platforms in the future.
Source: ZDNet, Microsoft
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