Teams Mobile app: Drive mode & Share content

Teams Mobile app got a new feature just recently: Drive mode. When you have joined a meeting you can set your mobile device into Drive mode, which makes it is easier to focus on – say – driving since in Drive mode Teams won’t be showing screen sharing or incoming videos to you. Also leaving meeting is really easy with one big red button. Entering drive mode however requires one to

joining a meeting in Teams Mobile (pay attention to notifications and top of the screen: joining can be super-easy )
Tapping the screen to open … menu
tapping the Drive mode
Teams tries to connect to car’s bluetooth system
you can mute / unmute call easily
you can exit Drive mode with a tap on top of the screen

Did you also notice that from the same … menu you have Share-option? That feature is not new, but this is a good time to remind about it: using share you can share phone content or video feed (defaulting front camera) into the meeting.

You can actually be clever with this one and attend a meeting without bringing laptop. Just make sure there is (or create it on the go) a Teams meeting the presenter can join in with you. Then you can share the PowerPoint from your mobile device into the meeting and give control to the presenter who can then control the slideshow. This way you don’t have to switch the presenting device cable, which can be sometimes be really a mood-killer and problematic.

Teams Mobile notifications are getting updates

Notifications are in Teams Mobile is, again, getting some updates. There is a new option to turn on Live Meeting in app notifications. No news about that yet, but I suspect it will control alert in Teams about on going meetings and make it possible to join them easily. Currently Teams alerts about on going meetings in calendar and prompts to join them.

However, that option does not stay on. Currently it resets to off at this point. But since it is already in UI it won’t be long until it starts to work.

Previous Teams notification settings are now in Configure Notifications screen. There are some funny inconsistencies about these settings screens in Teams Mobile: I have a dark theme in place, but some screens (like Notifications) are light-themed and when I enter Configure Notifications it is again dark themed.