Today Microsoft announced that it will launch a new Universal build of its Mac Office 2019 beta today that supports Apple’s new M1 Mac mini, MacBook Air, and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
By far the most powerful chip Apple has ever made, M1 transforms the Mac experience. With its industry-leading performance per watt, together with macOS Big Sur, M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 6x faster GPU, up to 15x faster machine learning capabilities, and battery life up to 2x longer than before. And with M1 and Big Sur, users get access to the biggest collection of apps ever for Mac.
All of Apple’s Mac software is now Universal and runs natively for M1 systems. Existing Mac apps that have not been updated to Universal will run seamlessly with Apple’s Rosetta 2 technology. And iPhone and iPad apps can now run directly on the Mac.
While the M1-based Macs will be able to run x86 code that’s written for Intel Macs, the process will involve the software Rosetta to translate it to arm code (compatible with the M1). While Apple says in some cases x86 apps run on Apple Silicon through Rosetta better than natively on Intel Macs, that won’t always be the case…
Microsoft’s principal software engineer for Apple products, Erik Schwiebert shared today on Twitter that a Universal build for Mac Office 2019 beta is arriving later today with Apple Silicon support. For now, there’s no date set for when a public release is scheduled.
MSFT plans to push a Universal build of Mac Office 2019 to the Beta Channel (formerly “Insider Fast”) by the end of today.
We don’t have a public date or version for a final release; this is an initial peek for customers to test on hardware they may be acquiring this week… 🙂
— Erik Schwiebert (@Schwieb) November 11, 2020
MacDailyNews Take: More info about joining the Mac Office 2019 Beta Channel to get Microsoft Office for Apple M1 Macs beta here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Soon to be golden master, I hope….
Does this mean 32-bit apps will run under Rosetta 2?
I believe 32 bit is out, doesn’t work.
I have heard that Microsoft is working on bringing Power Pivot to the Mac version. That would be nice. There are some things the Mac version does better (e.g., handle graphics, such as importing EPS) and some things the Windows version does better (e.g., switching a workbook to French numeric/currency formats—I wish they had the ability on a worksheet level—and exporting to PDF while retaining hyperlinks associated with graphics). I hope for a day when I don’t have to run both the Mac and Windows versions just to complete a project. With the move to Apple Silicon, Parallels will lose its ability to run Windows, so, either the Mac version must improve, or I’ll have to keep a Windows laptop around (yuck…).
Notice many of small to medium sized developers will be ready with their programs on DAY ONE.
Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk will be in the rearview mirror.
That’s great but the price to pay for MS Office is too high unless you need it day in day out. The Apple apps, whilst a bit quirky are okay for intermittent use.
Office sucks, Excel is the only Microsoft Program worth using despite the ribbons UI.
Microsoft, Adobe, Autodesk won’t be ready I knew it ha..ha..ha…