A few weeks ago, Windows Central exclusively revealed that Microsoft is looking at bringing an "Office Hub" to Windows 10 at some point in the future. This Office Hub would incorporate Office 365 into one convenient place, allowing users to see what's going on within their own Office 365 network, including what People are working on, Documents shared and created, and a whole lot more.
Now, it appears Microsoft is planning to bring that same feature to iOS, and we've received screenshots which confirm this.
The Office Hub app for iOS looks similar to the Office Hub concepts we saw planned for Windows 10, except adapted for the iOS design language. We've still got the same "streams" that are now more easily categorized into three areas; Now, Documents and People.
The Now area is where everything happening within your Office 365 network is showcased, similar to a social network timeline, this shows your upcoming events, priority inbox and more. Then there's the Documents area, which showcases recently opened documents, mail attachments and popular documents. Finally, there's the People area, which can showcase nearby people on your Office 365 network and sort all your shared documents, meetings and more with a specific person.
Codename Havana
The Office Hub for iOS is codenamed Havana, which is also the codename for some other productivity related apps, including Cache, the "successor" to OneClip. As we reported a while back, OneClip was not dead, and Microsoft was looking at ways they could bring it to life in 2017. I was told that the name "Bundle" was being thrown around internally too, and today leaks from Microsoft's Cache app appear to sport a feature called "Bundle", which isn't a coincidence.
It looks like Cache is definitely turning out to be OneClip reincarnated, but what's peculiar is it's codename. Perhaps the Havana codename is in fact related to Office productivity apps, which would make sense as in our Office Hub for Windows 10 story, we explained that Microsoft were looking at making users more productive within Windows in 2017.
Regarding the Office Hub for Windows 10, it's likely the iOS version will arrive before the Windows 10 version does. In internal concepts, the Office Hub is an integrated feature within Windows 10, whereas the Office Hub for iOS is just an app. It'll take longer for the Office Hub to show up in Windows, but we'll likely get a better experience too.
Or, what's more, these Office Hubs might eventually be superseded by Cache, which if you think about it, could make sense as they both are productivity based and allow for easy sharing of documents and information, but Cache offers the added benefit of a universal cloud clipboard. Who knows.
In the meantime, what do you think about the Office Hub on iOS? Let us know below.
