Microsoft Outlook for iOS and Android gets Sunrise features

While Microsoft has always promised to faithfully carry on Sunrise’s legacy following the calendar’s acquisition last year, the Redmond company has been slow to port over the app’s best features to its new home in Outlook. Thankfully, a new update on Tuesday for iOS and Android is finally making Sunrise’s demise more bearable.

The update is all about making the death of Sunrise a much less painful transition for those migrating over to Outlook for mobile. Going forward, Microsoft’s app, which has a calendar built-in, has many features that people loved about Sunrise, including interesting calendars, event icons, improved date and time pickers, and more.

With event icons, for example, when users type in keywords such as “coffee” or “lunch” in an event, icons will be used to match the title, making events more visually appealing. Maps will also show up in event details, which means you can easily top on the map in event details to navigate to your destination.

On Aug. 31, Microsoft planned to shut down Sunrise but extended the deadline date while the company continued to beef up the Outlook experience. With today’s update for iOS and Android, Sunrise is being shut down for good.

“The Sunrise you know and love isn’t going away,” Microsoft said. “It is Microsoft’s goal to bring email and calendar into one seamless experience, and today marks an important milestone in that missions—two teams joining forces and putting all their creative energy into one powerful app to help you manage your work and personal life no matter what device you’re on.”

Even with Sunrise’s best features now available in Microsoft’s mobile Outlook app, it still doesn’t quite feel the same though the experience is getting there. Hopefully, with more time the two teams can create the seamless experience Microsoft is aiming to achieve.