Microsoft Office 365 For Mac Gets Touch Bar Support And Skype For Business

Mac users of Office 365 are set to benefit from a full Skype for Business client and Touch Bar features on Word, Excel, Outlook, Skype and PowerPoint, if they have one of the new Apple  MacBook Pro 2016 models.

Skype for Business Mac had been in preview since April but is now publicly available to all Office 365 subscribers, adding edge-to-edge video for immersive content sharing and viewing alongside all the standard features of the VoIP application.

The Android and iOS editions have also been updated so users can present meetings directly from a mobile application, while Video based Screen Sharing (VbSS) has been improved so it’s more reliable and makes more efficient use of available bandwidth.

MacBook Pro Touch Bar

Office 365 will use the Touch Bar included on the 13 inch and 15 inch variations of the 2016 MacBook Pro to display the most frequently used and contextually relevant commands.

For example, text formatting tools will be visible when using Word, formulas, cells and borders in Excel and content options in PowerPoint will be displayed. Outlook will show commands such as attachments, while Skype will also be compatible.

“We have a long history of working with Apple to support new form factors and devices, and—as you can see from the news this week—we’re continually evolving Office to take advantage of the latest and greatest hardware innovations across the industry,” said Kirk Koenigsbauer, who heads up the Office team at Microsoft.

Earlier this week, Microsoft showed how Windows 10 users of Office 365 would benefit from 3D creation as part of the Windows 10 Creators Update, and Koenigsbauer said all of these developments showed how Microsoft was committed to making work easier through innovation.

“From the announcements we made with the Windows and Surface teams on Wednesday—including Ink Editor, Ink Replay, digital ruler, Segment Eraser, support for 3D models and integrations with the Surface Studio and Surface Dial—to the Touch Bar integration we unveiled with Apple this morning, we’re working hard to take advantage of the very latest in hardware and software innovation from across the industry,” he added.

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