There’s a reason why Microsoft Teams has witnessed a meteoric rise, outpacing its more popular competitors like Slack. That reason is Microsoft’s keen attention to compatibility. You can use Microsoft Teams on virtually any platform, from Windows and Mac desktops to Android and iOS smartphones, and even the more recently launched Linux edition.
Microsoft Teams on iOS brings the app’s desktop capabilities to a smartphone, with several nifty features added in. Broadly, Teams has three experiences – a web portal, a desktop client, and a mobile app downloadable from the Apple Store. Here are some of the app-only features you can expect with Microsoft Teams on iOS:
- You can link Teams with iOS productivity controls. If you set quiet hours and days, Teams notifications will be muted for that period to ensure work-life balance.
- To save battery life, the Microsoft Teams App on iOS offers a dark mode. As an added bonus, the dark mode makes usage easier on the eyes for extended hours.
- Microsoft Teams on iOS supports screen sharing straight from your smartphone. You can play videos, peruse presentations, open a website, and the like to share with your audience.
- The app lets you seamlessly transfer an ongoing meeting from your laptop to the phone. This feature is sure to come in handy, as most of us continue to WFH.
Microsoft Teams for iOS is extremely popular. Its been reviewed over 181,000 times on the Apple Store and has an impressive rating of 4.6 out of 5. The lion’s share of users give it 5 out of 5, and this number could rise with Microsoft expanding Teams’ free functionalities in response to COVID-19.
It also helps that Microsoft constantly updates the app, paying equal attention to both Android and iOS versions. The latest version (2.0.11) introduced the ability to add files/folders to channels, invite link support, a “More” button on the UI, and the much-awaited virtual hand-raise to catch the host’s eye during an ongoing meeting.
To deliver a superior experience to iOS users, Microsoft Teams includes native Apple CallKit integration. This means that incoming calls on Teams look like any other call, even appearing on your lock screen. And if you aren’t sure about all of the app’s features, you can always ask T-Bot, Teams’ Slackbot-like assistant.
So, are there any limitations on Microsoft Teams for iOS? Expectedly, real-time collaboration on Teams desktop outperforms the iOS app any day. You can open Office files if you have the other Office 365 apps installed, and you can even connect to third-party services if necessary. However, at its core, Microsoft Teams for iOS promises a simple, sleek communication experience, replacing multiple channels like telephone, Skype, WhatsApp, etc. with one truly robust platform.
The app requires iOS 10.0 or later to run, which covers almost every iPhone and iPad model in use today. At a download size of 230.6 MB, Teams might be slightly heavy, but it definitely deserves the #2 ranking it currently holds in the Apple Store’s business category!
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