Ex-Microsoft dev revives live tiles for new Outlook rival

Live Tiles disappeared from Windows years ago, but a former Microsoft engineer is bringing the concept back to life in a new email client.

Jeff Fritz, who left Microsoft in mid-July, has confirmed he's building DayFrame, a desktop app that could position itself as a rival to Outlook.

From Windows 8 staple to forgotten feature

Live Tiles were introduced to the Windows desktop when Windows 8 was released and were then continued in Windows 10 through Project Neon.

The feature did not make the transition to Windows 11 and has thus been quietly discontinued, joining other features of Windows 10 that were discontinued at the same time. This makes the feature's inclusion in a stand-alone email app somewhat ironic considering that Microsoft had spent years slowly discontinuing the feature.

DayFrame is a .NET application developed using .NET MAUI Blazor Hybrid.

Rather than functioning purely as an inbox replacement, the app is designed as a shell capable of hosting separate modules for email, calendar, and contacts, with GitHub, photos, social media, instant messaging, a journal, and a feed reader also under consideration.

Each of these modules is developed and tested separately and then combined using a common contract layer, as stated by Fritz, in an attempt to enable new functionalities without interfering with those functionalities that are used by the users.

Users are provided with a consistent sidebar of Live Tiles which resembles that of Windows Phone and which enables them to access modules as well as information.

Colours, font types and sizes of tiles can be customised, and even unused modules can be deactivated.

DayFrame has yet to reach a pre-alpha release, and there's no public build available to test.