Microsoft's Visio diagram creation tool slated to be released for Windows phones

By John Callaham
published

Microsoft has confirmed that it plans to release a version of its Visio diagram creation tool for Windows smartphones at some point in the future.

Neowin reports that Microsoft made that announcement at a panel today at its Ignite IT conference in Atlanta. It also stated a version would be released for Android smartphones. In August, Microsoft launched a preview version of Visio for the iPad. Microsoft has not announced a specific date for when the Android or Windows phone versions would be released.

Visio is part of the Microsoft Office family of productivity apps. It was first released in 1992 by the Shapeware Corporation, but Microsoft acquired both the company and its Visio app in 2000.

John Callaham
John Callaham
33 Comments
  • The more UWP apps, the better!
  • Aww yeah!
  • I thought Visio was discontinued as of 2014.
  • Its not AFAIK they just removed a lot of features like code generation from class diagrams
  • No its alive and well, LIDL use it for their stores floorplans. You can use it to create scale floorplan drawings so they use it to plan the grocery aisles and then issue them as part of the construction information package to ensure services such as lighting and power match up to the planned store layout.
  • You might mean InfoPath since it was discontinued from the Office suite after 2013?
  • The more from msft, the merrier for the Windows phone sector.
  • Good news. Hoping it works on PC and in Continuum too. I would have to assume it will but you never know if it will end up being Phone only initially.
  • Visio on a phone. Oh, crap... I am thinking this is intended for Continuum.
  • I am thinking the same.  But to be able to pull up a visio diagram on the phone and look at it, would be helpful, by itself.  Well at least helpful to the people that need that such as network people, or server ops people.  
  • I have to believe this works in continuum/PC. I don't really think I could use visio even on a 950XL. There just seems to be too much going on for a small touch screen. Except viewing what has already been created.
  • Either way, I WANT IT NOW!!!
  • The iOS preview is a viewer, not a creation tool. At least not at this point. It is a decent viewer, which actually would be nice for Win 10 Mobile in any case. I can tell you Visio is not a product you want to use on a small screen, beyond reviewing drawings. It's not particularly fun to use with a pen/stylus either. Might get easier with use, but it isn't a natural transition from mouse and keyboard.
  • Soon™
  • It would be good if Visio itself were affordable for PC.
  • Very true but is only £8 a month to add to Office365 so if you need for a project you can add it. Isn't Visio pro about £400 retail?
  • Thanks for pointing this out. Somehow it never occurred to me to just one-month it on the rare occasion where I've wished I had it.
  • Visio is one of Microsoft more expensive apps. I'll be excited if this turns in to "Visio Express" and is available to download and use for free. 
  • This is awesome news! I love Visio because it's so versatile. I use it for programing flow, workflows, and as a light CAD tool. Can't wait to see what this looks like.
  • Same here
  • This is something I have been wanting for a long time.
  • You are literally the only one. Visio is a waking nightmare. Probably the only MS product I can actually say I hate.
  • Really!
  • It really surprised me Microsoft does not release ios or android version before WP.
  • ******* kill me. I literally felt a tinge of sudden anxiety seeing that screenshot. Please do not bring Visio anywhere near my phone. Leave that nightmare on the office workstation where it (regrettably) belongs.
  • Trolling.... Wow!
  • Not trolling at all. It is an extremely frusturating program to use if you're not an expert with it. I don't often need to make diagrams but when I do they are fairly complex and I can always anticipate fighting with Visio for at least a few hours over some mundane issue that you would think would be easy to fix but instead requires 18 steps and a day of tedious precision-mousework.
  • On the contrary it is a very easy tool to learn and use.  You are clearly trolling
  • I've also found its a pretty easy and straightforward program to use.
  • Go ahead and make a server rack diagram in visio. Except don't use the included shapes, you actually have to install literal exact shapes of the server hardware into visio so the scale will be correct. Now that you have the rack all made up try and use the connector tool to show how the wiring should be configured. Oh no! With the standard connector tool there are too many lines and no one can make any sense of it! So now you have to congifure the connector tool to be curved and avoid proximity to other connections. Now you are pinning joints onto each line so that it will curve in the correct way when you try to connect it to the correct server input. Be advised that because there are now joints and curves in the connection when you make each connection every way you move the mouse now affects how the connection will look on the final diagram. There's also another fun thing I had to do where I imported SQL code into visio to generate a database diagram and it spanned nearly 10 pages that I had to correct. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
  • Great news now all i need is Ms access on my phone
  • MS Project!
  • No surprise here. My understanding is that Office 2016 is the last version of Windows being released as desktop apps and the next one are going to be UWP or Xamarin based. 1. Office 2016 version is 16.x. UWP apps have version 17.x.
    2. Outlook UWP client has been silently shown during Build 2016, check 1:32:27 at https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2016/KEY01.
    3. I presume there will be no Access UWP client as the technology is too outdated and not compatible with current requirements and there are creating more up-to-date replacements.
    4. I am not sure whether Publisher app is going to be abandoned or rewritten but I consider the first one to be more probable.
    5. Project app have not seen much of updates during last releases. I see three possibilities here. It will be either completely replaced by the cloud offering, get a complete rewrite to UWP with improved workflow or the UWP apps will get just core offline scenarios where others will be cloud only.
    6. Visual Basic for Applications and non-JavaScript based add-ins and extensions are deprecated.