The latest surprise release of is largely what you'd hope to get in an Outlook refresh: At long last, a version that looks and works almost identically to the Windows version. This is great news if you live exclusively in an Exchange environment, but you may want to mute your celebration if you also deal with other calendars and contact lists created elsewhere.

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The update became available to all Office for Mac users today. It replaced December 17, 2017's version 15.41.0, which fixed a bug with Microsoft AutoUpdate and applied some security updates. Oct 16, 2017  Microsoft is working on a big redesign for its Outlook for Mac and Windows apps.

Outlook and the Mac have a long and ugly history. For many years, there were, at best, rudimentary and semi-functional Mac versions of Outlook, which created a self-fulfilling cycle that the Mac was not ready for or worthy of use in the enterprise. Various versions of Outlook Express and something called Entourage performed some or most of Outlook's functions through the early 2000's. [ Further reading: ] But those substitutes had no actual code from the baseline Microsoft Office suite, of which Outlook is a part, and the user interface was different enough from Outlook to create problems for support and IT departments. It didn't help that Entourage never quite reached parity with Outlook as an Exchange client.

It wasn't until late 2010, with the release of Office Mac 2011 (the most recent version to date) that Entourage was buried and a full version of Outlook for Mac was released. Simple drawing app for mac. But even then, the user experience was different from -- and less capable than -- the Windows version.

In fact, it was dissimilar enough that moving from one platform to another was frustrating. Last month, screenshots started to leak out of Outlook for Mac 15.3, part of an anticipated new version of Office slated for next year. Surprisingly, Microsoft released a no-extra-charge Mac version shortly thereafter through its. Parity with Windows -- sort of The big news is that, at long last, Outlook for Mac has more or less reached parity with Outlook for Windows.

Rather than worrying about making things 'Mac-like,' Microsoft's designers have become confident enough to build out their own design language across platforms. The interface is cleaned up and icons are simplified.

Outlook for Mac looks and works like the same Outlook you'll see anywhere. The Ribbon interface is cleaned up in Outlook 15.3 and mirrors the Windows version. Unread messages are clearly denoted by a blue bar to the left of the message abstract -- much easier to see than the bolding that marked unread messages in the previous version. [ ] Dan Rosenbaum The toolbar and ribbon for Outlook 2011 (top) featured textured and shadowed icons that attempted to be “Mac-like” but became dated with frequent OS updates. Outlook 11.5’s ribbon (bottom) relies on Microsoft’s own design language.

The icons are cleaner and the lettering smaller, reflecting Office’s interface across all platforms. Links to the various pieces of Outlook -- mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes -- have been moved from the left column under the mailboxes to the bottom margin of the window. They used to be easy to miss, especially if you had many accounts and many folders. Now, they've got a prominent place of their own. A nice touch: In Calendar view, there's a new Weather Bar on the right side of the screen, above the calendar. It shows the forecast for today and the next two days, either for your current location or any other place of your choosing. Performance is quite quick, even on older machines.