Microsoft Sharepoint App Arrives For iOS Devices

Intranet in your pocket’ touts Microsoft, as long-awaited collaboration software arrives on Apple devices.
SharePoint-powered intranets have gone mobile, with Apple iOS users now able to download Microsoft’s mobile app from iTunes.
It comes after Microsoft announced last month that its collaboration software was finally being redeveloped for a cloud-first, mobile world. It promised at the time it would deliver a mobile app for Android, iOS and Windows 10.

Mobile Intranet

And now the Sharepoint mobile app for iOS can now been delivered. It is worth remembering that Sharepoint has been around for 15 years now and is integrated with Microsoft’s cloud-based Office 365. It essentially allows businesses to manage content, build intranet websites, and organise files, among other things.

But critics had argued it had not adapted to changing ways of work. Microsoft was facing increased competition from the likes of Slack, Dropbox and others. But now with the SharePoint iOS app, Microsoft is touting the ability for users to get their intranet in their pocket.

“The new SharePoint mobile app helps you keep your work moving forward by providing quick access to your team sites, organisation portals and resources, and even a view into what the people you work with are working on,” blogged the SharePoint team.

When the app is fired up on an iPhone or iPad, the user prompted to sign in with their SharePoint credentials. The SharePoint mobile app lets the user switch between accounts.

The app works with SharePoint Online in Office 365, SharePoint Server (2013 and 2016) on-premises and in an hybrid environment.

App Intelligence

Microsoft touts the intelligence of the app, which applies machine learning to activity in Office 365 to connect the user to the relevant documents and people around them. Indeed, the user should be able to quickly find their sites they frequently visit and the sites they follow.

The user is also able to check out recent and popular files. For example if a team has a particular SharePoint site, the user should be able to gain access to recent or popular files quickly to view or share them. The user also has full access to their document libraries using the new integration with the OneDrive app.

Other features include a links tab to find promoted links for the user’s organisation; an enterprise search facility; and a find function to locate and browse the people the user works with.

Of course it goes without saying that the user or his company needs to have an Office 365 subscription that includes SharePoint Online, or an on-premises SharePoint Server.

It is perhaps surprising that Microsoft has chosen to deliver the iOS mobile app first. It said however that Android and Windows Universal versions would be released before the end of this year.