Microsoft adds iPhone, iPod sync to Office 2008
November 28, 2007 (Computerworld) — Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac will let users port PowerPoint presentations to iPhones and video-equipped iPods, Microsoft Corp. said yesterday as it unveiled the latest details of the suite scheduled to ship in January.
PowerPoint 2008, the presentation maker included in the bundle, can export creations as a series of pictures — but not video — to iPhoto ‘06 and later. Alternately, users can save the slides to the Mac’s Pictures folder.
“From there, sync pictures to your iPod or iPhone through iTunes as usual, then use the built-in photos or slide-show program on your iPod or iPhone to show your presentation,” said Blair Neumann, a program manager in Microsoft’s Mac development group, in a post to the team’s blog Tuesday. IPhones and iPods that boast video viewing — the iPod touch, the newest iPod nano and the iPod classic — can also connect to a larger screen television or a projector using Apple’s $49 component AV cable.
Apple Inc.’s own Keynote presentation maker, one of the three applications in the $99 iWorks ‘08 suite, can also export its slide shows to iTunes. From there, Keynote presentations can be synced to iPods or iPhones.
Microsoft will release Office 2008 for Mac on Jan. 15 at the Macworld Conference & Expo in San Francisco in several editions priced from $150 to $500
Zune 4GB: first impressions versus iPod
Electronista (Gadgets for Giggs) is preparing to compare the new Zune against the iPod and has just received a new 4GB model for testing. While a full review is stil some time away, we already have initial impressions of the device and its accompanying software, as well as how they compare to their most obvious rivals from Apple. Read ahead for this first take as well as an image gallery.
Microsoft has managed to streamline the initial setup experience for the Zune significantly. The multi-layered packaging draws more than a few elements from the So far, the attention-getting Zune Pad controller has also proven to work well; in a sense, Microsoft has managed to borrow the best elements of the iPod’s click wheel without sacrificing the ability to tap or click (you can do both) to navigate items one-by-one. The interface still isn’t quite as elegant as for the iPod, and we can see some users getting tired of having to reach for either of the side buttons, but it comes as a revelation compared to the confusing interfaces of most Creative ZEN jukeboxes.
