oh wow, forced update on mail.live.com to Outlook Mail (Preview)

[pxc]

lol, I can't even who thought this is a good idea. I can view 3 message summaries on the screen at once*, it seems to be formatted for touch usability on a 5" screen (not useful for a 16" laptop display) and there are no meaningful ways to customize the message views or opt out of the preview.

I didn't use my live.com account for much, but this update makes the web interface completely unusable. Not even the mail client on my 7" tablet is this bad, and it's the one Amazon made to replace Google's Android email app. And the incredibly slow speed is just amazing. Amazing.

I feel bad for people who actually paid for service and are stuck with this sub-minimally usable crappy interface.

* vs 14 or 18 on gmail and yahoo, for comparison

edit: 3rd time logging out and back in has given me the "old style" hotmail interface that was dated looking a decade ago. At least it partially solved the problems

 

[PGHammer]

lol, I can't even who thought this is a good idea. I can view 3 message summaries on the screen at once*, it seems to be formatted for touch usability on a 5" screen (not useful for a 16" laptop display) and there are no meaningful ways to customize the message views or opt out of the preview.

I didn't use my live.com account for much, but this update makes the web interface completely unusable. Not even the mail client on my 7" tablet is this bad, and it's the one Amazon made to replace Google's Android email app. And the incredibly slow speed is just amazing. Amazing.

I feel bad for people who actually paid for service and are stuck with this sub-minimally usable crappy interface.

* vs 14 or 18 on gmail and yahoo, for comparison

edit: 3rd time logging out and back in has given me the "old style" hotmail interface that was dated looking a decade ago. At least it partially solved the problems

And it's largely irrelevant, unless you actually PREFER to use a web-based interface.

I have always despised web-based mail - I prefer NOT using it (regardless of OS) - the fact that web-based is the default with Yahoo Mail is, in fact, my biggest peeve with it as a mail service.

I'm assuming that you are using a FireOS-based device? Alternatively, you can use Outlook for Android (which will also work on FireOS), as Outlook itself can work with any mail service that support POP3 or IMAP4 - yes; this IS true of Outlook for Android - which is my backup mail client for GMail on my own Android tablet. I'm STILL waiting for a proper non-browser-based mail client for Yahoo - for any OS (since Zimbra killed their Desktop client for Yahoo Mail); I don't blame Zimbra for killing it, as it was basically a loss-leader. So, in my case, the issue isn't the UI or even UX.

 

[pxc]

I would want to stay a million miles away from outlook for android. MS will manage to make a tablet mail client suck even on a tablet. I don't need much from a web based email client, but formatting it the exact same way as for a 5" phone with touch controls is just plain dumb (only 3 emails visible on a 16" laptop... i did mention that). And it's a hassle to get out of that mode.

 

[CEpeep]

Why are you using a mobile website for mail on a phone in the first place instead of a native app?

 

[pxc]

Why are you using a mobile website for mail on a phone in the first place instead of a native app?

I'm not. As I posted above, but repeated (again) in tl;dr format:

tl;dr
1. MS changes mail.live.com (MS's live.com web mail site) to some crappy phone OS inspired layout in the Outlook Mail (Preview) or whatever downgrade

2. I'm using a laptop. I mentioned it has a 16" screen.

3. Even on a 16" laptop screen, MS has formatted the web mail client to fit touch controls and information density more appropriate for a 5" device, making it ridiculously low in information density and very unusable on a laptop with a much bigger screen. there is no meaningful customization to this OWA client.

4. I did compare outlook.live.com unfavorably to the crappy Amazon mail client app, which is a gazillion times more usable on a small tablet than the new outlook.live.com web client is on a 16" screen laptop. I found this shocking.

5. I also stated I would stay away from the MS outlook app because it's almost certainly as crappy as outlook.live.com