Microsoft recently redesigned their iOS Outlook app so that it looks less forbidding. I’ve been finding it more pleasant to use, though I wouldn’t say I actually like it — it’s still Outlook after all! But I might check out the iOS Word app again to see if it too has become more welcoming.

Do they do stuff with your email on their servers like a lot of the apps now? Or is it a traditional IMAP app?

@scientifics if you use Outlook on iOS (and I assume Android), it does store your messages on Microsoft servers. I'm not sure I care. I might if it was another company. I have Microsoft365 (work), Google accounts and IMAP accounts set up (8 in all). The advantages of using Outlook (and frankly other email apps) over Apple Mail on iOS are not insignificant.

@artkavanagh you couldn't pay me to use Word.

Word is actually not terrible/* on iOS. The interface is fairly clean and Microsoft is good about adopting new features (multitasking, Files, etc). If I have to deal with a Word doc, I do so on my iPad.

/* I know, high praise.

I use Word almost daily across devices and while I wish the Android and iOS versions were more similar I must say it really works for me and my small team.

As it happens, I've spent the day editing Word documents created by someone else, some of which have become corrupted. It beats me how people much younger than I am, who have never used a typewriter and have been around computers all their lives have still somehow acquired “typewriter habits”: hitting the tab key several times or inserting lots of empty paras to open up white space, for example. Were they trained by typewriter survivors who have passed on the arcane knowledge from one generation to the next? And in a constant effort to give people reasons to upgrade, Microsoft has broken a lot of things that twenty years ago worked, if not perfectly, at least better than they do now.

@artkavanagh just reading that made me a little insane. If I had to deal with it directly, as you do, I would definitley go insane. Another side of me would enjoy correcting them. Suppose that says a lot about me 😃

@nathanrhale I suppose it really depends on your needs. Mine are highly collaborative and when I don't need to collaborate, I write in plain text using an app that just gets out of the way.

@Bruce as you kind of allude to, "not terrible" isn't the kind of software I enjoy using.

Makes sense. We do a lot of formatted text and tables (church bulletin, flyers etc) and collaboration is really easy via OneDrive. Like you, I like to type in straight up plaintext editor when possible!

I have to restrain myself from diving in and correcting more than is necessary. I ended up not insane (as far as I can tell) but very angry, and had to take a break. I don’t have to collaborate much, fortunately — Track Changes really would drive me insane. For my own writing, I’ve settled (for now) on Simplenote and Markdown.

@artkavanagh well, now I know we’d be fast friends IRL.

@artkavanagh “We’re they trained”. ROFLMAO.