“Microsoft has opened the gates for Office for Mac users who are willing to be testers for certain new features as part of the Office Insider program,” Mary Jo Foley reports for ZDNet.
“Microsoft officials said on January 21 the Office Insider program which the company made available to Office for Windows and Office for Android testers late last year is now available to Mac users, too,” Foley reports. “(Microsoft actually opened the Office Insider program to testers a couple of weeks ago, officials told me when I asked. But they only blogged about it today.)”
“The Office Insider program is a bit different from the Windows Insider one, in that it is for those interested in testing features that are only about one to three weeks away from final release, according to Microsoft officials,” Foley reports. “Windows Insiders are testing possible new Windows 10 features that may be multiple months away from general availability.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Given the eternal beta-esque nature of Microsoft’s final product releases, especially Office for Mac, the only difference is they’ve now given name to the process while allowing users to volunteer to start the suffering a bit earlier.
We use Pages, Numbers, Mail, and Keynote on our Macs, iPads, iPhones, and, in certain cases, on our Apple Watches, too. 100% Microsoft free equals smooth, smooth sailing!
SEE ALSO:
Microsoft belatedly working on fix for Office bugs in OS X El Capitan – October 5, 2015
Microsoft’s Office 2016 crashes like a banshee on Apple’s OS X El Capitan – October 2, 2015
Microsoft’s Office 2016 for Mac is wildly unstable on OS X El Capitan – September 30, 2015
Microsoft is irrelevant to me.
Not sure it does any good…I’ve submitted feedback on not being able to print my outlook calendar and they haven’t fixed it since release.
And they never will. Have you ever called Microsoft for support? I have and it’s an infuriating waste of time that involves being transferred at least four times, and you never get a chance to even begin to describe your problem. Then the call mysteriously drops.
No thanks. 😛
Can’t get away from Excel yet. Numbers needs more functionality. Pages & Keynote is fine.
I hear ya brother. If Apple could make Numbers more useful…or dare I say, more like Excel…then we’d never need Microsoft. I try, and try, and try…to use and enjoy Numbers. It just isn’t there for me. I still use Numbers as much as I can because of Continuity (which is priceless!), but it always feels like a bit of a chore to work with.
Office 2011 for Mac is so much better.
Why can’t we size and crop images in email yet? WTF MShiz?
…For the masochists among us.
I gave Office 2016 a serious try, but it is completely useless and extremely slow. I went back to Office 2011 in all the rare cases I need Word or Excel. I prefer Numbers 09 and Pages 09 and would love to see if Apple would bring missing features back to the newer versions and would add more features, but I doubt it.
Office suites are for people still stuck on AOL, fax machines and CRT monitors.
I use XL for my business, Tried numbers and Google Sheets but XL seemed to be the only option I could trust moving between my iMac at home and XL on my iPad in the field. I feel dirty using office but it works. What I don’t like are the continual office updates on my Mac. The Updater app is crappy and annoying, the last thing I’d want is to be on the office insider program and have to deal with more frequent updates.
I hope Apple releases Pages, Keynote, and Numbers for Windows. Then I don’t have to constantly import and export Office document formats.