For instance, if you select a contact and click the Mail tab, Outlook searches for messages sent to and from that person while clicking Events lists all the meetings that you share with that person. Outlook makes some nice use of the contacts. In addition, you cannot add a new Outlook contact from your device. Synchronization is one-way and Exchange is the master copy, meaning that you cannot make changes to an Outlook contact on your device. Outlook for iOS has its own People section that synchronizes with the contacts stored in a user’s Exchange mailbox (on-premises or cloud – including ). But at the end of the day, contacts stay under the control of the OS. The iOS and Android app stores contains multiple third-party apps designed to help people organize contacts in many different ways by creating groups of contacts, detecting and removing duplicate contacts, and so on. The app allows users to input, edit, and manage contacts that then become available to other parts of the OS, such as dialing numbers or recognizing incoming calls or assigning specific ringtones to different people. The Android address book serves the same purpose. A contact manager is a default part of all mobile operating systems and iOS comes with its own Contacts app. Like any third-party app running on iOS, Outlook must follow the rules set by Apple. The OS dictates what apps can do on a mobile platform.
I understand that the situation is not much better with Outlook for Android.
Most of the time I use Outlook to receive and send email with calendar an important second priority.Ĭontacts come in third, but as I get to know the app better, it is blindingly obvious that the implementation of contacts within Outlook for iOS is not as good as it is in Outlook for Windows 10 Mobile. When I wrote about Outlook for iOS during my transition from Windows Phone to iOS, I concentrated on email notifications and downloads.