Apple Welcomes Microsoft to the App Store

All you frustrated Microsoft Office fans using Macs, your time has finally come. Microsoft is making its Office suite available on Apple’s Mac App Store. The software giant originally promised to bring Office apps to the Mac App Store by the end of 2018, and after a short delay they’re finally on hand. All your favorites are here: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and even OneDrive as part of the Microsoft Office 365 app bundle. One small catch: you will need an Office 365 subscription to use Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.

The apps are the same versions that have been previously available to Mac owners through Microsoft’s own website, but they’re now neatly packaged in the Mac App Store. The biggest benefit of this is that the Office apps will be automatically updated through the Mac App Store, instead of Microsoft’s separate AutoUpdate (MAU) tool that’s been typically used to update Office for Mac.

“We are excited to welcome Microsoft Office 365 to the all new Mac App Store in macOS Mojave,” says Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. “Apple and Microsoft have worked together to bring great Office productivity to Mac users from the very beginning. Now, with Office 365 on the Mac App Store, it’s easier than ever to get the latest and best version of Office 365 for Mac, iPad and iPhone.”

Microsoft is offering a one-month trial of Office 365, after which you’ll have to opt for Office 365 Personal at $69.99 a year ($6.99 per month) or Office 365 Home at $99.99 a year ($9.99 a month). Office 365 Home covers Office apps for up to six users on PC or Mac, and both subscriptions come with an additional 1TB of OneDrive storage per user and 60 minutes of Skype calls per month.

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