Microsoft has announced today that Outlook.com IMAP support has finally been added to the company’s popular email service. IMAP and OAuth both are now immediately available for Outlook.com. The email service already supports Exchange ActiveSync, a protocol that is used by majority of the smartphones and tablets available today which run on Android, iOS and Windows Phone. Now with IMAP support, devices and apps that don’t support Exachange ActiveSync will be able to tap into Outlook.com email accounts.
IMAP is an older protocol that is still widely supported on feature phones and various email clients. Microsoft says that it has heard users’ feedback about the need for IMAP support and its clear to them that this is important, hence the update. Apart from offering connectivity to a wide variety of devices, IMAP also allow developers to build apps and services that offer “value-added scenarios” apart from Outlook.com email. Services such as TripIt, Sift, Slice, OtherInbox and Context.IO have already capitalized on Outlook.com IMAP support, they’re rolling out updates for their apps today. The IMAP support announcement was initially made during an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit, Microsoft then followed up with a complete blog post with all of the details.
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