Microsoft Loop feels like it’s pretty close to being perfect for what I need, so it’s easy to overlook its flaws. The core experience is strong - it’s super minimalistic and easy to use, has a hierarchical structure, has linkable and reusable components, and it has advanced filters for its tables. It pretty much replaces Notion for me in that it’s now one of my primary project managers and note-takers. And I love that I can keep it pinned right in my browser, where I do most of my work.

But no app is perfect. I’ve definitely started noticing some unsavory quirks the more I’ve been reaching for Loop. They don’t make the app unusable, but these are the types of gaps that eventually make alternative options look more attractive over time. It’s the basic stuff that would level up the whole experience if Microsoft tackled them.

You can’t expand the page width

It can feel rather restrictive and just awkward

One of the biggest appeals of the big players in the productivity space, like Notion or Obsidian, is their flexibility and customizability. To me, this is always a double-edged sword - too many options are overwhelming and cause clutter, but when it comes to that one tiny feature I do want in a minimal app, I definitely notice it’s missing. In Loop, this missing feature is the ability to expand the page width.

The strange thing about Loop is that it actually does have the optimal character length per line of around 75, which is what experts deem makes text more readable on screen. But in Loop, this ideal character length is all squeezed into the middle, with big empty spaces around the edges, so you still have to scroll more than is necessary. It’s actually a pretty awkward setup the more I look at it. Having larger text that can expand into the sides and properly utilize that empty screen real estate would improve readability overall. Notion’s Full Width feature does win in this case.

Another strange thing - Loop’s tables are expandable. You can expand any table (and calendar) right to the edges of the screen. This is great, and it’s what many users want. Expanded tables bring more columns into view, which gives you a better direct visual overview of your data. However, it still looks awkward when you have text blocks on the same page, which can’t expand. So you end up with text squeezed into the middle of the page, tables that stretch out to the sides, and then text below that with a different width again - it’s just too visually inconsistent.

Version history could be better

It’s just not practical

Most of the productivity and note-taking tools I use have a version history. Today, I’m drafting this article in a Google Doc, which has an excellent version history. But not every tool’s version history is very practical. When you view the different states of your project in the version panel, you expect to be able to click through them and actually see those versions in the main window or editor. Unfortunately Loop is one of those tools that has a static version history.

What this means is that as you click on the different states of your document, it doesn’t actually show you what the document looked like at those points. So if you want to restore to an older version, you just have to guess which time you made a specific change, restore back to that point, and hope you land where you intended. If you pick a version too far back, too bad, you’re now stuck there.

Luckily, I don’t rely too much on version history in any of my apps. But it’s still such a basic feature that Microsoft could have easily nailed. It’s especially frustrating when you think about the fact that Loop was built around real-time collaboration. That’s exactly the kind of environment where proper, visual versions matter the most. Even just a “preview before restore” function would be an improvement.

No offline support

Loop dies when your connection drops

Given I’ve been raving about how I love being able to use Loop in my browser, this might not seem like it should be a big deal to me. However, there is a desktop app, for which I would expect at least some kind of offline functionality. If my connection drops, which happens from time to time, I’d still like to organize my pages and create some notes. Even Notion, which notoriously has limited offline functionality, has these basics available offline.

It’s the small stuff that improves user experience

I’ve heard many people say that Loop feels like a half-abandoned Microsoft experiment. But to me, part of its charm is exactly that it’s so stripped down compared to other project managers - I love Loop for its simplicity. However, minimal and simple shouldn’t mean lacking. And I definitely think a tech giant like Microsoft can improve the overall experience by incorporating some of these basic missing functions.