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Microsoft Office launch on Mac App Store imminent, subscription required [U: Now available]

Update: Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook are now live on the Mac App Store.

Microsoft Office appears to finally be headed for the Mac App Store as soon as this week, based on a couple of clues. Apple first announced that Microsoft would bring Word, PowerPoint, and Excel to the Mac App Store back in June 2018 as part of its Worldwide Developer Conference.


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Microsoft bringing Google Calendar and Contact syncing, enhanced Gmail features to Outlook for Mac

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Microsoft announced today that it plans to bring Google Calendar and Contacts support to Outlook 2016 for Mac later this year. Outlook for Mac already works with Gmail accounts for managing email, but this update will mark the first time Gmail users can manage contact databases and calendar entries using Microsoft’s software.


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Apple confirms plans to open development center in Hyderabad, India

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After earlier reports claiming that Apple was planning to open a new office of sorts in Hyderabad, India, today the company has confirmed to local publications that it will indeed expand in the area with a new development office planned for later this year. Apple’s statement via a report from The Economic Times is below:


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Mac users can now try out new Microsoft Office features early with ‘Office Insider’ program

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Microsoft opened up a beta test program for Windows users last November, letting Microsoft Office fanatics get early access to upcoming new features. Microsoft is now rolling out the program to the Mac, so OS X users can (optionally) join the beta program too. For the first round of the beta program, Microsoft will be adding inking and realtime typing / collaboration to PowerPoint. Expect these features in the ‘coming weeks’. More details available here.


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Comparison breaks down all the missing features in Office for Mac & iPad vs Windows

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This comparison of the differences between Microsoft Office on Mac, Windows, and iOS devices was put together by Kurt Schmucker who (disclaimer) works for Parallels — the company that makes slick virtual machine apps for running Windows and other operating systems on Mac — but he also happens to know a thing or two about the subject after his previous role as Senior Mac Evangelist at Microsoft and on the Office team. So what exactly is missing on Mac and iOS devices compared to Windows when it comes to the Office suite?
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Microsoft Office for iOS adds 3D Touch quick actions for iPhone 6s, Apple Pencil ‘ink’ on iPad Pro

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Office 3D Touch

Microsoft is out with a nice update to its Office for iOS suite today, adding 3D Touch quick actions to Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for iPhone 6s and 6s Plus users as well as promised Apple Pencil integration on the iPad Pro. The latest versions of the Office suite also changes how fonts are handled and improves document search on iOS.


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Office 2016 for Mac now available outright for $150, no Office 365 subscription required

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Update (via 9to5Toys.com): MacMall has Office Home and Student 2016 for $139.99 ($10 off) or Business for $20  off) with Tax in a few states.

After teasing it at the beginning of this year, Microsoft made Office 2016 available for Mac earlier this summer, but only for those that had an Office 365 subscription, which runs $9.99/mo or $100/year. Today, however, Microsoft has released a standalone version of Office 2016 for Mac, allowing anyone to purchase the software outright.

Purchasing Office 2016 for Mac without an Office 365 subscription will run you $150 for a Home & Student license, which lacks Outlook. With the purchase, you’ll also get 15GB of OneDrive storage. Office 365 subscribers get 1 terabyte of space. Office Home & Business 2016 for Mac is also available for $229.99 and includes Outlook. Both of those prices are up $10 from the previous versions of Office and for single licenses, as Microsoft continues to push users towards Office 365 plans.

Microsoft this time around is not offering a standalone business plan for Office. Instead, organizations are required to sign up for an Office 365 plan. Business plans start at $5 per users and increase in increments up to $12.50 per user, depending on what features you want.

Office 2016 for Mac features a redesigned suite of apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote. The software also includes enhanced cloud functionality, including the ability for multiple users to collaborate on documents in real time when using the same app on different platform, including Mac, iPad, or PC. The apps are also all now optimized for devices with Retina displays.

You can purchase Office 2016 for Mac outright for $150 now via Microsoft’s website. Read our initial hands-on with the software here.

Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, & Excel for iOS updated w/ improved Outlook integration, more

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Microsoft today has rolled out updates to its trio of Office apps including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. The updates bump each app to version 1.12 and while relatively minor, include a new feature that will be significantly useful for the Microsoft Office power users out there…


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Microsoft Office iOS apps add Outlook integration, improved sharing, protected documents, & more

Microsoft is rolling out an update to some its Office iOS apps today that includes a handful of new features for the Word, PowerPoint, and Excel iPhone and iPad apps.

Among the new features, all three apps get support for viewing protected documents and Outlook integration. For Outlook, users now have the ability to “send a document as an attachment in Outlook. Or directly edit a document attached to or linked from an Outlook email message.”

In addition, all three apps get support for bi-directional and script languages, including Thai, Hebrew, and Arabic.

The updated apps will also now let users invite others to edit a document and configure permissions for those collaborators.

The updated Microsoft Office apps (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) are available on the App Store now.

Microsoft releases Office 2016 for Mac to Office 365 subscribers

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Earlier this year, Microsoft unveiled the entirely redesigned Office for Mac 2016 preview and introduced a variety of new features to go along with the fresh appearance. Today, Microsoft has released the official public build of Office for Mac 2016. In order to use the software, you must have an Office 365 subscription, which runs $99.99 per year or $9.99 per month.


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The best Mac desk, chair, decor, and peripherals for your home office

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Like Apple Watches, home offices are “personal” — the look and furniture that work well for one person might not seem “right” to another. But the unified metal and glass aesthetic of Apple products works really well with modern office furniture, and there are also some iconic decor items Apple lovers can incorporate into a home office.

I spend a lot of time working from my home office, and have considered it a work in progress ever since I started building it around an aluminum PowerBook many years ago. Below, you’ll find a collection of items that will help you build a beautiful, practical home office that really spotlights your Apple gear, based on a mix of affordable and small investment-worthy choices…


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The Best Mac Accessories and Upgrades

Over the past six months, I’ve published quite a few tutorials to help Mac users improve the performance of older computers, as well as some great guides to the best Mac accessories across a variety of categories. Today, I’m tying them all together in this handy, one-stop roundup of the best Mac accessories and upgrades.

This guide walks you through everything: in one place, you can learn about the best Mac hard drives, RAM upgrades, docks, keyboards, trackpads, stands, bags, and travel accessories out there. And you can also get free apps to improve your Mac’s storage and responsiveness, find plain English explanations of your Mac’s technical specs, and learn about the little security screws Apple uses to tamper-proof its machines. There’s a lot inside, so you may want to bookmark this piece for future reference!…


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Office for iPhone & iPad will soon support cross-platform add-ins from services like Uber and LinkedIn

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<a href="https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/593459473173204992" target="_blank">via Harry McCracken</a>

It was hard to miss the iPhone 6 and iPad Air on stage during the beginning of Microsoft’s BUILD conference for developers. It turns out the Apple devices were used to demo a new feature coming to Office for iPhone and iPad called add-ins…

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Microsoft brings its OneNote scanner to the iPhone with Office Lens

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Microsoft is bringing its OneNote scanner app called Office Lens to the iPhone after first launching on Windows Phone a year ago. Office Lens is similar to other on-the-go scanner apps letting you use your iPhone camera to capture information from receipts, documents, and other information around you. Office Lens is different, however, because it’s connected directly with OneNote, Microsoft’s cloud-syncing notebook service.


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Back to the Mac: Microsoft releases redesigned Office for Mac 2016 Preview w/ Retina support, collaboration, more

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PowerPoint 2016

Before today, the latest versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for OS X came with Office for Mac 2011, a suite of productivity apps which you can tell from the name included dated software without many modern features Mac users expect. Office for Mac 2011 was actually first released in October 2010. A lot has changed since then.

Microsoft moved Office from a paid upgrade approach to a cloud subscription model, saw its CEO Steve Ballmer retire and buy a basketball team, appointed Satya Nadella as head of the company, and even released Office for iPad and iPhone.

For the Mac, though, the most capable versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel have only been available as Web apps—not native—until now. As promised, Microsoft is today releasing the public beta of Office for Mac 2016 including all new versions of the company’s go-to productivity apps.
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Microsoft OneNote for Mac adds OCR for scanning & copying text from images, full search coming soon

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OneNote, Microsoft’s cross-platform application for taking and organizing notes, received a useful update on the Mac adding support for OCR, or optical character recognition. OneNote version 15.7.1, which is rolling out on the Mac App Store now, adds the ability to scan images from OneDrive notebooks for text.

Once OneNote’s OCR system has ran, you can actually copy the text and save it to your notes just like if it were a editable text file from the start. Searching images for text is currently possible for new images added to OneDrive notebooks, but a future version will make text search possible on existing images as well.

The update also includes the ability to toggle viewing authors and closing the window without quitting the app. Microsoft also added support for iCloud Drive on its iOS versions of Office yesterday. Full release notes below:

Parallels Desktop 10 updated with support for Windows 10 and Microsoft Office previews

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Windows 10 Tech Preview in Parallels Desktop 10 on Mac OS X Yosemite

Parallels announced this evening that its virtual machine software Parallels Desktop 10 for Mac has been updated with “experimental” support for the technical preview of Windows 10 from Microsoft. Users who want to take the latest version of Windows for a test run without overwriting their existing Boot Camp installation or creating a new partition can now do so safely and free within the confines of a VM.

The update also adds the ability to run the new preview version of Office for Windows 10, which includes updated versions of Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Microsoft announced earlier this year that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for one year for any users running Windows 7 or later.

Parallels Desktop 10 is available from the Parallels website for $79.99. Special pricing is available for students and users running previous versions of Parallels and a free trial is available here. Press release follows:
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Apple shares updated aerial image showing Campus 2 construction progress

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Just after sharing our latest drone flyover video of Apple’s under construction “Campus 2” in Cupertino this weekend (this time in 4K), Apple today shared an updated aerial shot of the campus.

The shot shows early progress being made on the structure of the main building and other buildings on the campus as well as earthwork and greenery on the surrounding property.

The City of Cupertino’s website, which tracks construction and traffic updates related to the Campus 2 project for locals hasn’t changed the project schedule that still calls for building construction to wrap up by the end of 2016.

Apple has recently opened a number of smaller satellite offices in Sweden, Seattle, and Cambridge, Englandbut it expects its new 176 acre Cupertino campus to hold around 12,000 of its employees when construction is complete.

Check out the latest drone flyover video of the Campus 2 site (in 4K!) from over the weekend.

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Microsoft buys Acompli, an email app for iOS

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Microsoft announced today that it acquired Acompli, an email client for Android and iOS, in an effort to own more productivity apps on each mobile platform:

This acquisition is part of our company-wide effort to help people accomplish more with their mobile devices. This year we brought Office to the iPad and the iPhone, and we recently announced that we’re bringing Office to Android devices. These are significant steps in our work to deliver the best productivity experiences across mobile platforms, and we’re continuing to push forward.

Acompli also wrote about the acquisition news while discussing support for various file services:

Soon after launch we started working with a number of enterprise IT departments who believed, like we do, that great products need to be “Loved by Users, and Trusted by IT.” Right around this time we began conversations with the folks at Microsoft about how we could go farther by integrating the capabilities of their Office 365 platform into our product while continuing to provide amazing support for email and file services from Apple, Dropbox, Google, and Box. Those conversations led to today, where we have decided the opportunity to join forces in pursuit of a better, faster, more powerful email experience is something we can do better as one company.

The acquisition follows Microsoft’s announcement last month that Office for iOS no longer requires an Office 365 subscription for editing files and the debut of dedicated Office for iPhone apps including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. Microsoft also integrated Office support with Dropbox as part of a new partnership between the two companies.

According to Re/code, Microsoft spent more than $200 million to buy up the email app although neither company disclosed that amount.

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Updated Dropbox iOS app gives you quick accesss to renaming files and folders, more

iPhone-3.6-Rename-FINAL-gifDropbox announced today that an incoming update hitting the App Store today will offer the ability to rename fils and folders and more.

Today’s update to the iOS app includes a new “more actions button” that will let users rename files, folders and access other functions: We’ve added an easy-access more actions button next to the sharing icon in the upper right-hand corner that leads to a set of file options so you can quickly do things like rename or move a file…To rename files straight from the Dropbox, simply choose Rename from the more actions button as you’re previewing. Rename folders by swiping to the right from the file list view and tapping the rename icon.

Dropbox also points out that the latest apps have a new disappearing toolbar that provides more screen real estate when viewing files and folders in addition to a few other new features. Our new toolbar disappears (and reappears) as you need it, leaving valuable screen space for a full view into your photos or important files. Simply tap once anywhere within your photo or file to toggle between the toolbar and full screen.

That new disappearing toolbar (which was present in the last version of the app as well) includes an edit button for Microsoft Office files as part of the company’s recent integration with the Office mobile apps.

The updated Dropbox app for iOS, version 3.6, will be arriving on the App Store today.

What’s New in Version 3.6

• You can now rename your files and folders!
• Swipe right on a folder to see more actions, including rename.
• We’ve moved a few things around – there’s a new more actions button (⋯) when viewing files
• On iPhones, the more actions button (⋯) also includes the full file na

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Dropbox’s Microsoft Office integration arriving in updated mobile apps today

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Following an announcement earlier this month that Microsoft was adding Dropbox integration for syncing and sharing to the Office for iOS apps, Dropbox announced today that the feature is now available in its latest app updates for iOS and Android.

The integration essentially allows users to tap into Dropbox storage directly from within the Office mobile apps, but it will also include the ability to send links to files from Office using Dropbox, open documents from Dropbox in Office, and more. Dropbox has instructions on how to use the new integration with Microsoft’s Office apps on its website.

To get started, make sure your Dropbox app is up to date on your iPhone, iPad, or Android phone, then open any Office doc, spreadsheet, or presentation in your Dropbox. Tap the new Edit icon (shown above) to start editing in the latest Office apps. When you’re done, your changes will be saved back to Dropbox automatically.

You can get the new features through the latest Dropbox app for iOS starting today and the latest versions of Microsoft’s Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Office apps. The integration is also expected to arrive for web users early next year.