When a user inputs a long press onto a text snippet in Outlook for Android, Bing will appear in the menu that opens. Other established options will also still be available, such as copy, cut, and web search. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this feature is users won’t need to have Bing installed on Android. It also seems that Outlook will make this tool spread across every app on Android. In other words, long press on text in any app will bring up Bing. That maybe explains why Microsoft kept this addition under the radar. It is a fairly spammy move from the company that is pushing Bing on people who may not have wanted the service on their device, but they do want Outlook for Android.
Testing
Of course, if you already use Bing then this will be a welcome addition to the Outlook experience. Microsoft’s email client is a popular application on Android, used by millions of people. It is worth noting some Outlook users are telling me they don’t see this integration. That suggests Microsoft is still testing it and it may never be rolled out to all users. If you don’t like having Bing forced on you, try deleting and re-installing the Outlook app from the Google Play Store. What do you make of this experiment, annoying spam, useful tool… or maybe both?
