Microsoft is getting more aggressive with ads in Outlook mobile apps
Microsoft Outlook is a solid email app on iOS and Android, but Microsoft might get a little too aggressive with some of it. Much to their frustration, users have noticed that Microsoft is now rolling out more ads on Outlook mobile, as a possible way to try and push the Microsoft 365 premium subscription.
Outlook on mobile already had two layout options to set either a focused inbox with two categories (focused and other) or a single inbox with all emails. In these cases, users without a paid Microsoft 365 subscription still saw ads that looked like real emails in “another tab.” You can see a sample in the tweet below.
iOS @Outlook the app is showing me ads that look like emails now get the hell out of here @Microsoft pic.twitter.com/o6dSIY85Yt
— Nick Smith (@yonicksmith) August 16, 2022
Yet now it looks like Microsoft is also pushing ads in view with the single inbox. This addition makes it harder to avoid seeing advertisements in Outlook without a Microsoft 365 subscription. The edge covered this news initially, and Microsoft’s official response from a spokesperson confirms the changes. The company mentioned a way to avoid seeing ads.
“For free Outlook users, announcements are displayed in their inbox and they can choose to enable the ‘Targeted Inbox’ feature if they want to see announcements only in the ‘Other’ inbox”
You can easily remove these ads from the inbox if you want by swiping them, but eventually they will come back. But as simple as a change seems to bring, Microsoft isn’t alone when it comes to these types of ads in messaging apps. Google and Yahoo also do this in their web experiences where you see small banner ads in your inbox.
To get the ad-free Outlook mobile experience, you can subscribe to Microsoft 365. An annual subscription can be purchased for $100 per year for a family or $70 per year for a personal account, or at a monthly rate of 10 $ per month or $7. a month, respectively. If subscriptions aren’t an option, other ad-free messaging apps are available on iOS and Android.
Source: The Edge
