Microsoft set to kill Windows Mail and Calendar apps in favor of much-maligned new Outlook app
In what is sure to be termed by some as an awful move, Microsoft is discontinuing Windows Mail and Calendar apps by the end of this year. These standalone apps will be replaced by the new Outlook app that the company has been pushing relentlessly.
To prepare users for the eventual complete removal of Mail and Calendar, the new Outlook serves a notification informing about the impending change when toggling to the old version of Outlook. Microsoft is also moving the toggle to switch to the old Mail experience from the top right corner to Settings > General > About. Additionally, and rather annoyingly, the switch to old Outlook has now been made temporary and the mail client will revert back to the new version after every app reboot.
According to Windows Latest, Microsoft is advising people to move to third-party email clients if they don’t want to use the new Outlook app after the phase-out of legacy solutions is complete. The statement reads as follows:
“Support for Windows Mail, Calendar, and People is ending in 2024 so if you don’t want to use the new Outlook for Windows after trying it, you’ll need to move to a different application by the end of 2024. More information on specific end of support dates will be made available in accordance with the Modern Policy for product lifecycles”.
The new Outlook app is hated by many
One look on forums such as r/Windows11 is enough to confirm that the new Outlook app is hated in the community. Users lament the fact that not only is the new Outlook just a web wrapper that is buggy and slow, but it also lacks useful features such as a unified inbox. Even worse, the app shows ads and, as we all know, nothing annoys users more than seeing ads inside formerly ad-free programs.
In essence, the consensus of the Windows community seems to be that the new Outlook app is a regression in almost every way.
Finally, enterprise customers are safe from the change as Microsoft will reportedly continue supporting the old Outlook app for businesses.
Source(s)
Windows Latest, Microsoft
