In this case I have to disagree. I've been using the web version of outlook for at least 8 months now and it is so much better than the rusty windows application.
1) searching mails is much faster locally
2) OWA zoom plugin requires re-auth every time SSO times out
3) most operations take 1-2 more clicks on OWA (marking meetings pub/priv, editing a meeting, etc).
On the other hand I've not had plugins working on my native Outlook for several months...
I had hated Windows outlook for so long, I forgot that client apps can be good.
Here’s what I like: 1) cmd+tab for quick switching between email and other stuff 2) faster search using local storage (although I think this could be done in browser) 3) Persistent login not affected by browser state/cookie/whatnot 4) Keyboard shortcuts not mixed into browser shortcuts 5) speed
I think 4-5 could theoretically be fixed eventually in a browser app. But every single native wrapper over browser has had so much bloat that I suspect it won’t happen.
I also really like the native Mac mail app, but can’t use it with some email accounts due to security settings.
But there is absolutely no reason for a mail client or calendar to use gigabytes of RAM and have significant impact on battery life. Which is bound to happen if you bundle Chromium et al. and run the webapps in it.
"In the future, the Evergreen WebView2 Runtime plans to ship with future releases of Windows." https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/webview2/
> The WebView2 control uses Microsoft Edge (Chromium) as the rendering engine to display the web content in native applications.
I have never liked Windows embedded webviews and don’t think they actually know how to use them well. They’ve always seemed like suckier interfaces than their native interfaces. I think their new control panel stuff is web controls and seem clunkier and slower than the old windows control pane widgets.
The big trouble with Windows' embedded webviews in the past has been that they only updated once or twice a decade with Windows updates, so tied to very specific IE versions and often meaning applications that used them were stuck in specific versions of the web platform. The new "WebView2" from Microsoft is powered by Chromium Edge so it should be a lot closer to Electron in practice (though still, updated at user/system pace [just now on the much faster Chromium Edge cycle rather than the slower Windows cycle], not developer pace which is often the specific draw to Electron).