Microsoft Outlook for Windows, Android, and iOS is getting summary cards about flights, packages

Microsoft is announcing today that it’s adding a new feature to Outlook across platforms that will make the email and calendar app a bit more helpful — and a bit more like Google. Whenever you receive an email about a flight, a hotel reservation, or a package, Outlook will automatically display an easy-to-read summary card with a rundown of the most important details, above the long and rambling machine-generated email you usually get.

Microsoft has started rolling the feature out on Outlook.com and Outlook for Mac, and it will be coming next to Windows, Android, and iOS, as well as the Mail and Calendar apps that ship with Windows 10, Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for Office 365 client applications at Microsoft, wrote in a blog post.

You’ll also receive “dependable and actionable reminders to stay on top of flight check-ins,” Koenigsbauer wrote. You can even tell Outlook to give you an “Uber ride reminder,” just to be sure you’ll be at the airport on time, Microsoft said in a blog post.

Above: How the summary reminders work.

Image Credit: Microsoft

For years, Google has provided a clean interface alongside emails about flights in Gmail and has also exposed Google Now cards about flights, hotel reservations, car rentals, and packages. With Outlook, Microsoft is now doing something related but different.

Microsoft has been in the middle of refreshing Outlook across all platforms, following its 2014 acquisition of Acompli. Meanwhile, Microsoft will be shutting down the Sunrise calendar app at the end of August.

Also today, Microsoft is announcing that inking in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be coming to iPhone next month, and OneNote for Mac will soon let users do inking using the trackpad.

And the Sway presentation app is getting more features for businesses and schools paying for Office 365. Password protection is becoming available, users will be able to remove the footer at the end of Sways, and users will also be able to make longer Sways with more content, Koenigsbauer wrote.