Microsoft today announced a major redesign coming to the OneDrive mobile apps, stating with OneDrive for iOS. The company says that the refreshed design falls in line with the rest of the Office 365 suite of apps across platforms. The redesign is part of the Fluent Design system refresh that the app has been receiving through the way of new icons and a revamped experience on the web.
The app now gets a new header that is like what is present on the Outlook app, with a search box that sits in the center. The overall iconography and color palette has been updated to increase ease of use and improve “legibility and contrast”. The “command sheet”, the menu accessed by hitting the ellipsis icon (“…”) has also seen updates that include a “softer” look. Overall, changes to the look and feel will improve UX and consistency with other Office apps.
An improved ‘Recents’ view now displays recently accessed files, including recently uploaded scans and viewed PDFs. The updates to OneDrive on the web too received a similar feature as part of its refresh last year, making the experience familiar for iOS users of the app. And for those that access and annotate on PDFs on the go, the PDF annotation experience has been improved. The options now include quick actions at the bottom for pens, highlighters, and eraser that make it easier for users to markup PDF documents. These changes will be making their way to the Android version of the app as well. There have also been improvements to the notes experience in PDFs.
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The app is also receiving updates to the ‘signature’ feature that includes a larger signature area and smoothing of pen handwriting. These improvements will also be making their way to OneDrive on Android devices. In addition to these features, the OneDrive-powered file picker on Outlook for iOS has been updated to provide easier options to insert OneDrive links and files right from the compose screen. The file picker now lets users browse through their recent documents, email attachments, and more, while also letting users share links as per their organization’s policy.
Lastly, OneDrive on iOS is receiving updates to the Settings page so as to make it easier to manage settings for each account. A separate “Notifications page” now houses notification settings grouped by accounts. Other settings such as the ‘Camera Upload’ option have been improved with granular control on what and how pictures are uploaded, along with a question mark icon next to some settings that lead to more context about that particular setting.
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The company is holding a OneDrive webinar on the 31st of July to go over the benefits of using the OneDrive mobile apps and to show off the recent updates to the app. The firm is also holding an AMA (Ask Me Anything) session right after the webinar to answer user questions.
The updated app should begin rolling out to iOS users in the coming days. If you don’t see the update come through yet, don’t worry, as the update should gradually make it to all supported iOS devices. You can head to the App Store to download the OneDrive app here.
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