My posts on Email Development

Windows 10 Outlook Mail gets updated with email rendering “improvements”

Last week the all things Microsoft and Windows news site Windows Central reported an update to the Outlook Mail app which supposedly fixed the way emails were being rendered on Windows 10. Excited (because I’m that kind of nerd), I hammered the check updates button on the Windows Store with my Lumia 950 XL in hand to take a look at this new update. Find out more on what I found in the new update.

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HTML email in Outlook Mail on Windows 10, a total mess

Outlook Mail is the new “Universal App” and default email client on Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. It shares a somewhat familiar Microsoft Word engine core similar to its desktop predecessors. Earlier on in the year I wrote about the Outlook Mail app when it arrived in preview form via the Windows Insider programme. What I found was a very different email experience to what was previous seen on Windows 8/8.1 and Windows Phone 8/8.1. Months later and with Windows 10 (PC) officially released, new Windows 10 Mobile devices now in the market and with pre-existing Windows Phone 8.1 devices being prepared to receive the upgrade very soon, how have things changed? In this article I’ll cover the problems with Outlook Mail and what I think Microsoft need to do to fix it.

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Revealing why emails appear off-centre in Android 4.4 (KitKat)

Recently some members of the Litmus Community noticed that email campaigns in Android 4.4 were no longer being centred to the device width. I was slightly puzzled by this as overall Android 4.4 has a pretty decent email experience, but sure enough I started seeing email content being cut off on the right hand side. Looking at my code I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary that would cause this. Wanting to find out more, I dived into the source code of the Android 4.4 mail app to get some answers! Find out what I discovered.

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An email developer’s first look at the Outlook Mail app in Windows 10

Windows 10 is the upcoming version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system and there are some big changes coming One area which caught my attention was the mention of the Outlook email client. While its not unusual for Microsoft to talk about their own software, the changes to how Outlook and the whole Office suite will be on Windows 10 is certainly a shift from the current package. Windows 10 will feature a new Outlook app that will be the default email client in Windows 10, replacing the current Mail and Calendar apps in Windows 8/8.1. Not only that but its also a universal app and will be on phones and tablet devices as well.

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Revisiting the email rendering quirks of Office 365/OWA

Recently Microsoft have made an update to its webmail offering Office 365 in terms of how it renders emails. As reported by Nicholas Carter on the Litmus Community many of the previously known Office 365 quirks are no longer happening. Has Microsoft listened to the community on this one and changed its ways? Find out more in my analysis of what’s different under the hood of the Outlook Web App since the changes.

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