Outlook
I will start this by simply saying that for many years I used Microsoft's Entourage software on the Mac as my primary email, calendar and contact application. While it didn't have all the features of Outlook, I also wasn't completely aware of what I was missing since I'd not really used Outlook by that point in my life.
Entourage was discontinued after the Office for Mac 2008 release. It was replaced with Outlook for Mac. It was around that time that I switched from Entourage to the Apple Mail, Calendar and Contacts system that came baked into the OS. I never really liked it as much as I liked using Entourage since everything was kept in separate containers. Sure, the various applications could talk to each other, but if I wanted to go through my contact list in any meaningful way I had to open my Contacts application instead of just checking out contacts within the software.
It was also around this time that I began using Outlook quite heavily in my professional life. At first I was frustrated by it - I automatically hated it because it wasn't an Apple product (I was drinking the Kool-Aid quite heavily at that point) and it wasn't Microsoft Word (which was the only software I would say anything descent about). There was even a point where I began switching away from Word to try and find something else for my writing so that I wasn't using any Microsoft products. That's eventually how I landed on using Pages. Of course I'm now abandoning that to go back to Word (see my previous Post on Apple Rage).
These days I'm much more in the camp of "use what works for me" regardless of who made it.
Which brings me to MS Office. I don't use Outlook at work these days because the email software we use, Zimbra, doesn't support the most recent version of Outlook. Because of that, I've just been coasting along using the built in Mail, Contacts and Calendar applications in Mac. I recently installed Windows 8.1 on my MBP Retina and since I have an Office 365 subscription, I simply installed Office 2013 onto it and booted up Outlook.
What they've done with Outlook on Windows is wonderful. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but the more I use it, the more I enjoy it. It's a great way not only to handle email, contacts and calendars, but it's also a great tool for GTD (Getting Things Done). I am able to successfully sync my Apple ID email, contacts and calendars as well as my Gmail email, and my Outlook.com account. The caveat with Gmail is that I have to use third party tools to sync the calendar and contacts across the board. Why Outlook doesn't support CalDav and CardDav is beyond me and really the only complain I have with the Outlook system as a whole.
Outlook for Mac is a clunky piece of trash. It's not intuitively put together the way it has been with Office 2013. Aside from the Ribbon Interface, which is dumbed down from the Windows Ribbon, it looks and feels like an older version of Outlook for Windows - except clunky.
On top of that, while Outlook for Windows supports my Apple Accounts, Outlook for Mac only supports email syncing - no calendar or contacts.
Honestly, I'm not certain who to blame on this. Is Apple pulling strings with Microsoft to keep the Outlook software dumbed down or is Microsoft not wanting to offer the same types of functionality to Mac users in the hopes of transitioning them to Windows?
Regardless, the consumer is kind of getting shafted.
I would like to see Office for Mac and Windows to be pretty much identical. That's coming closer and closer to being true. Office 2010 for Windows and 2011 for Mac closed the gap. My hope is that Office 2014 for Mac will fix many of the issues currently found within Outlook for Mac and made it something worth using instead of something I just tossed in the trash and deleted.
*Addendum:
Also, using Word for Windows 2013 is a much more pleasant experience than using Word for Mac at this point. It's smoother, the interface is kinder, and the ribbon is put together better. This may warrant a longer entry at some point, but I'm tired and it's after midnight.
Entourage was discontinued after the Office for Mac 2008 release. It was replaced with Outlook for Mac. It was around that time that I switched from Entourage to the Apple Mail, Calendar and Contacts system that came baked into the OS. I never really liked it as much as I liked using Entourage since everything was kept in separate containers. Sure, the various applications could talk to each other, but if I wanted to go through my contact list in any meaningful way I had to open my Contacts application instead of just checking out contacts within the software.
It was also around this time that I began using Outlook quite heavily in my professional life. At first I was frustrated by it - I automatically hated it because it wasn't an Apple product (I was drinking the Kool-Aid quite heavily at that point) and it wasn't Microsoft Word (which was the only software I would say anything descent about). There was even a point where I began switching away from Word to try and find something else for my writing so that I wasn't using any Microsoft products. That's eventually how I landed on using Pages. Of course I'm now abandoning that to go back to Word (see my previous Post on Apple Rage).
These days I'm much more in the camp of "use what works for me" regardless of who made it.
Which brings me to MS Office. I don't use Outlook at work these days because the email software we use, Zimbra, doesn't support the most recent version of Outlook. Because of that, I've just been coasting along using the built in Mail, Contacts and Calendar applications in Mac. I recently installed Windows 8.1 on my MBP Retina and since I have an Office 365 subscription, I simply installed Office 2013 onto it and booted up Outlook.
What they've done with Outlook on Windows is wonderful. I wasn't sure I'd like it, but the more I use it, the more I enjoy it. It's a great way not only to handle email, contacts and calendars, but it's also a great tool for GTD (Getting Things Done). I am able to successfully sync my Apple ID email, contacts and calendars as well as my Gmail email, and my Outlook.com account. The caveat with Gmail is that I have to use third party tools to sync the calendar and contacts across the board. Why Outlook doesn't support CalDav and CardDav is beyond me and really the only complain I have with the Outlook system as a whole.
Outlook for Mac is a clunky piece of trash. It's not intuitively put together the way it has been with Office 2013. Aside from the Ribbon Interface, which is dumbed down from the Windows Ribbon, it looks and feels like an older version of Outlook for Windows - except clunky.
On top of that, while Outlook for Windows supports my Apple Accounts, Outlook for Mac only supports email syncing - no calendar or contacts.
Honestly, I'm not certain who to blame on this. Is Apple pulling strings with Microsoft to keep the Outlook software dumbed down or is Microsoft not wanting to offer the same types of functionality to Mac users in the hopes of transitioning them to Windows?
Regardless, the consumer is kind of getting shafted.
I would like to see Office for Mac and Windows to be pretty much identical. That's coming closer and closer to being true. Office 2010 for Windows and 2011 for Mac closed the gap. My hope is that Office 2014 for Mac will fix many of the issues currently found within Outlook for Mac and made it something worth using instead of something I just tossed in the trash and deleted.
*Addendum:
Also, using Word for Windows 2013 is a much more pleasant experience than using Word for Mac at this point. It's smoother, the interface is kinder, and the ribbon is put together better. This may warrant a longer entry at some point, but I'm tired and it's after midnight.
Comments
Post a Comment