Microsoft updates Office apps for iOS 14, promises more news at Ignite

Dave W. Shanahan

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With the release of iOS and iPad OS 14, Microsoft is updating its suite of Office apps for Microsoft 365 customers. As noted in a post on the Microsoft Tech Community blog, Microsoft made several updates to their Office apps for iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. The Apple app library in iOS 14 comes with a new feature that automatically groups apps together for easier access. Another important feature of iOS 14 is the ability to change your default apps. Instead of being restricted to just using Apple apps, you can now use Outlook for email and Microsoft Edge for web browsing by default.

Once available with iOS 14, Microsoft Outlook and OneDrive will allow you to add widgets to your iOS and iPad home screen for easier access. The Outlook Calendar widget can give you a quick overlook on what is on tap for the day and with OneDrive, you can take a peek at photo memories or see what files you were working on last at a glance.

With iPadOS 14, Outlook users can use the Apple Pencil to draft emails and have them automatically converted into with Scribble. Available with iPadOS 14, Microsoft is introducing the ability to drag and drop files and photos from other apps directly into Outlook. For example, you can open your Photos app on iPad at the same time as Outlook and drag and drop pictures as email attachments, including the ability to add photos of receipts. You can also transfer files directly from OneDrive or iCloud and add them directly to your emails in Outlook.

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Using OneDrive and Outlook at the same time on iPad

Coming in Fall 2020, OneDrive will add the new Home experience, showing your most recently used files, documents, and photos, including offline files together regardless of what device you last used. OneDrive will support automatic renaming files and folders that may contain invalid characters or errors.

In addition, new capabilities are coming to Big Sur and OneDrive on macOS. Microsoft has a lot of app updates and new features in the pipeline for this year’s Ignite. You can now register to attend the free, all-virtual Microsoft Ignite 2020 conference.