In our mini “apps to watch” series, we’ve covered a handful of useful or innovative apps for Apple’s diminutive wearable. With WatchOS 2 about to be released in just a couple of days, apps for the device are soon to become even more responsive. However, there are still some great apps available now that no self respecting Apple Watch owner should be without…
Today’s short but sweet post takes a quick look at one of the platform’s most essential apps – Microsoft Outlook. Microsoft was among the first company’s to embrace the Apple Watch, even though the Redmond-based software giant has its own line of wearable products (alright, one, the Microsoft Band). It seems that CEO Satya Nadella is open to the idea of creating apps for the most popular devices out there whatever OS they run whether that’s an iPad, desktop PC, Mac or Apple Watch. And it’s not a bad strategy, getting the company’s products in front of users, even if they are on a competing platform.
Outlook is of course one of the world’s most popular email clients especially for business users, so support for Outlook is pretty much essential if you want quick access to your emails on the go. There’s now an Outlook app specifically for Apple Watch, with notifications that show a couple of preview lines of text, as well as allowing the wearer to archive messages and even schedule replies (nice feature, Apple – can we also have that for Mail?). And just like the native messaging app there are some pre-canned replies to choose from as well as the ability to dictate your own via Siri.
Like many of the Apple Watch apps, there’s also a dedicated Glance screen giving a quick summary of your inbox and upcoming events. On the whole, it’s pretty straightforward, but does exactly what you’d expect in a no-nonsense format. Hopefully with WatchOS 2, Outlook will gain even more new functionality and be updated in the near future as a proper native app, giving even quicker access to emails and notifications.
Do you have any favourite Apple Watch apps? Let us know yours in the comments below…