Boy Genius has posted some early screenshots of Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac. The screenshots reveal development on Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint 2011.
Much like Microsoft Office 2010 appearance, Office 2011 for Mac includes the ribbon on every application. This will also be the first time Outlook will be available in the Office Suite for the Mac. The appearance between Outlook for Windows and Mac appear to be similar, including a mail preview pane, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes available for use.
The screenshots also show a quick search in the toolbar for Outlook, Excel, and Word, for searching within your inbox, spreadsheet, or documents. Office 2011 is also said to include the same multi-use feature that Office 2010 includes, allowing for you and your co-worker to work on the same document at the same time.
Office 2011 for Mac computers is set to launch by the end of the year, just in time for the Christmas 2010 holiday season.
Office 2011 for Mac will bring ribbon support for applications. The ribbon will be similar to Office 2010 for Windows, but with the Mac theme support.
Office 2011 for Mac will not only receive cross-application ribbon support, but also sharing for documents and web application support. Users will be able to edit the same document and share between Windows and Mac users at any time, with real-time editing on both machines. Users will be able to make edits and changes to the same document, but not the same paragraph. This will work for Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications.
The old practice for earlier versions of Office would prevent users from opening the same document when edits were being made, usually causing in frustration for one or more parties, if a document was left open by mistake.
Microsoft also promised to deliver a full version of Outlook in the Mac 2011 version. the full version of Outlook for Mac will include .PST file importing, Time Machine and Spotlight support. Users who are already familiar with Outlook for Windows should be comfortable with the Mac release.
Since July, we have known about Mozilla’s plans to overhaul the Firefox user interface. As reported on Download Squad, a Mozilla dev has shared some newly updated mockups and information regarding the new look. On his personal blog, Chromatic Pixel, Stephen Horlander shares oodles of information, ranging from the design change itself, to the reasons behind the changes.
The App Button seems to be a major focus in the new UI. Many variations are being explored (see image at bottom of post), thought all of them aim for the same things, simplicity, and space saving. The new button is set to replace the menu toolbar that Firefox users are accustomed to. He also links to a previous sketch of his, showcasing what the unified menu might look like. In the image below, you can see just how much space the new layout saves when compared to Firefox 3.5.
Much of the inspiration for the new App Button comes from Microsoft. Horlander lists the advantages of it as follows. It’s less complex, takes up less space (leaving a less cluttered look), provides a unified location for menu items, and gives it a similar look and feel as the rest of Windows 7 and Office 2007/10. He also notes that the UI changes are scheduled for Firefox 4.0 only, and will not make it in time for 3.7, as originally planned.
Sources close to the Windows Live and Bing divisions at Microsoft have confirmed to BlogoFlux that Microsoft is currently developing both Bing and Windows Live Messenger iPhone applications.
Both applications are likely to be released alongside the upcoming Windows Live Wave 4 updates due in approximately March 2010. BlogoFlux understands that Windows Live is working aggressively to move its applications onto the iPhone. Last week Microsoft principal group program manager David Raissipour confirmed to Cnet news that “We are actively working on it” when questioned over the Bing iPhone plans.
Internally the philosophy “if you can’t beat them join them” is being adopted for iPhone development. Microsoft understands it needs to compete multi-platform for its web and cloud based applications if it wants to maintain and grow market share. Both applications have been available for nearly a year.
Stay tuned for more information on Microsoft’s Windows Live Wave 4 plans including what Windows Live Messenger will look like, tabbed messenger conversations and the Ribbon interface for Windows Live Writer exclusively here later this week.
