5tags

The one application that most Mac owners have been waiting for has been delayed. Originally Microsoft’s Office 2008 for Mac was rumored to be launching in August of 2007. Microsoft has just announced that Office 2008 has been delayed and should be available by January 2008.

It really is just a quality issue across the board,” Craig Eisler, general manager of Microsoft’s Macintosh business unit, said in an interview Wednesday. 

The last version of Mac Office was in 2004, which not only is a long time in terms of software but also all of the new Macs include an Intel chip, and thus the Intel Mac owners have been eagerly waiting for a Universal Binary version of Office.

My Take

Since I am starting college in the fall I was fairly angry because I really need this application. I suppose I can live with Office 2004 for the first term, maybe I can even get into one of the open source versions like Neo-Office.

What I Suggest

If you are waiting for Mac Office 2008 and need an office suite in the meantime then I have two suggestions:

• Use Office 2004 or
• Get the free Neo-Office

NeoOffice is a full-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X. Based on the OpenOffice.org office suite, NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac features and can import, edit, and exchange files with other popular office programs such as Microsoft Office.

As you may know I just got my MacBook Pro from Apple. After seeing many screenshots, blog posts, and digg stories about new and cool OSX apps for many years, I have installed and used many apps this past week. A few of these are just trials that I may end of buying, other I have already bought Some of my favorites include:

• Adium - for MSN and Gtalk
• Adobe Photoshop
• App Zapper
• Cabos - P2P
• Coda
• Colloquy
• CSS Edit
• Delicious Library
• Disco - buring app
• Garage Band
• Handbreak
• iBank
• iAlertU
• MacTheRipper
• Keynote
• Vienna - RSS
• Quicksilver - can not live without
• Textmate - purchased the second I got the MBP
• Transmission - bit torrent
• Transmit
• VLC

If you have any suggestions please leave a comment.

I just got my autographed copy of Steve Wozniak’s book iWoz. I don’t have a lot of time to read it this week due to exams but I will try to read it as soon as diploma exams are done. Here is a shot of the autograph! 

It is reported on ThinkSecret that Apple is making great progress on their next version of OS X, Leopard. It is rumored that Leopard was ship as early as March, 2007! Along with the release of Leopard, iLife 07 and iWork 07 should be available.

As late as mid-2006, Apple had planned to release iLife ‘07 and iWork ‘07 in January at Macworld Expo, as the company has done in previous years. But discontent over the quality of some of the new additions to the software, including Apple’s first standalone spreadsheet application, saw the release pushed back. At the same time, according to sources, Apple made the decision to wrap Leopard-specific features into the new iLife and iWork suites, originally planned for future releases of the software, possibly to further encourage sales of all three products.

On a personal note, the release of Leopard and iLife 07, will spark me to purchase a new Macbook Pro. As we get closer to the date, I will talk about that more.