Microsoft Office for iPhone Preview Update Is Live with New Features

Microsoft has released a new preview build of Office

Microsoft Office remains the preferred productivity suite on the desktop, but at the same time, Microsoft is also pushing hard to improve its adoption on the desktop too.

So the company keeps working on new capabilities for iPhone and Android, and this week, it started testing a bunch of new features for Apple mobile users.

A couple of improvements are now available in the latest Office for iOS testing build, and one of them is a so-called car mode available for Outlook.

“Car mode is a full screen experience designed to improve the PME experience for onboarded users while driving. Car mode auto launches when auto play is turned on. You must also open Outlook and not do anything for 4 seconds for Car mode to launch automatically,” Microsoft explains.

In addition, Outlook for iOS now comes with smart compose, which means the app can now suggest words and phrases as you compose messages. Accepting a suggestion is as easy as swiping.

These two improvements are part of version 2.45.

On the other hand, Microsoft shipped earlier this month version 2.44, and this one included many more features, including support for GIFs in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as document headings for Microsoft Word.

“Your documents just got snazzier. Animated GIFs are now supported in the Office editor. Previously, animated GIFs were static in the editor. This change will enable animated GIFs to play in the editor in a performant way, with user controls to play / pause,” Microsoft said. “We’ve heard from you that reading long documents on a mobile device can be difficult and anything we could do to make moving through the document would be welcome. Using the Navigation pane, you can use the Document Headings to skip ahead and back to the relevant sections of your file.”

Outlook also received a couple of improvements, and the first of them is improved integration for Cortana, allowing you to read recent emails on an iPad. In addition, the digital assistant is capable of doing some other stuff too, such as flagging, archiving, deleting, and skipping messages. It goes without saying this feature comes in very handy whenever you need to manage your email without touching the screen, such as when driving.

And speaking of features coming in handy when touch input can’t be used, Outlook also supports calling people with a voice command. Just tap the microphone in the search bar, and the moment you say “Call [contact name],” Outlook should prepare a call for English accounts in the United States.

“Give your thumbs a break and use voice commands to speed up everyday tasks such as initiating a call. Tap the microphone in the search bar and say “Call Anna” or “Call Anna on Teams” and Outlook will place you a tap away from making that call. Available for eligible accounts in English in the United States,” Microsoft explained.

Outlook has also received new dark mode improvements. As you probably know already, dark themes are the new cool thing in the mobile industry, and Microsoft obviously knows this very well and just can’t ignore this trend. So Outlook now comes with a dedicated toggle that allows users to jump from the light mode to the dark when right in the reading pane. You can thus toggle between the two modes with just the press of a button when reading a new message, and you thus don’t have to go to settings for the whole thing.