The folks at Hunch did this excellent comparison between Mac and PC users, using their recommendation algorithms. Hunch uses a “Taste Graph” system to try and see what correlations exist between things that people like on the Web. Using this data they could quickly see differences in what Mac and PC people like – for example, Mac users prefer to snack on salty snacks, but are also 80% more likely to be vegetarian… And Mac people’s favourite TV Show is The Office, whereas PC users also like South Park.

You get the idea (Click to Enlarge):

The iOS Appstore has been one of the greatest success stories in software distribution, and it revolutionized the way we used our mobile phones. It was universally “borrowed” for other platforms as well, some with greater success than others. The advantages to using an Appstore are plenty – users can instantly see the most popular applications available for a platform, and a central location to download apps from is great. Instant installs and easy payment methods just improve it even further.

Apple will now be bringing this functionality to Macs as well, and first to those running OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard). The idea is simple – instead of going to the edge of the internet to find apps, you will find a curated store which can easily be searched to find the software you want. Software will be licensed per user, and if you have multiple Macs, the software can be put on all your machines with a single purchase, as long as the machines are linked to a user account (I suspect there will be a limit to this though).

Your account will be connected to your Apple ID, which is in turn connected to your credit card. So you do not have to go type in your payment details into some site you do not trust. One aspect of the Appstore I find exciting as well – centralized updates. Just like on iPhone, you can click one button to instantly update all the apps at once. No more checking for updates within every app or using obscure utilities to the job.

Apple is currently opening the Mac Appstore to developers, and a lot of the same rules as the iOS Appstore exists here. Developers will get 70% of their asking price, but then Apple would host the app for them, and charge no additional fees. For certain software houses 70% might be too little (do you think Adobe would give away 30% of the asking price of CS5?), whereas for smaller developers this might be a great deal (think some small company making a utility who does not want to spend extra on hosting fees). Once again Apple would curate all apps, so if the app is of limited use, or does not function as advertised, it will not arrive on the Appstore. Some people do not like this, but the quality of apps inside the appstore would hopefully then be of a higher quality…

Despite the authorization process by Apple, the potential advantages for new computer users will be great. Its clear to see that iOS and Mac are moving closer and closer together…

OK, OK, I am pretty sure the first comment on this article is going to remind me that “Macs dont need antivirus!”… True, that has been Apple’s party line for quite some time, and luckily they have not really been proven wrong yet. But lets all remember one thing – the reason for the proliferation of Windows virusses and worms comes down basically because it is the most installed OS on the planet. If you are a lonely cooped up hacker who wants to make an impact, of course you are going to go for Windows.

Or so we think. In recent years Apple has quickly become the darling of the interwebz – and their track record has been (almost) blemish free. It is only a matter of time before the virus writers would target Mac vulnerabilities, and yes they do exist. Personally I dont run a antivirus on my Mac yet, but I have considered getting one, just because there are people with the belief that Apple is arrogant in their security claims…

ESET launched their Cybersecurity for Mac suite this month – and here is their product statement:

Safe Made Safer
ESET Cybersecurity adds an extra layer of detection to OS X Internet security features:

• Blocks any attempts to infect your Mac or steal your personal information.
• Eliminates threats to your Mac from email and removable media, such as USB, FireWire, CDs, and DVDs.
• Protects your Mac from malicious third party applications.

Eliminates PC Viruses, too
When sharing music, video, or other files, it’s possible that these contain viruses that are not a threat to the Mac, but should be removed to protect your friends, family and others who may receive files from you. ESET Cybersecurity eliminates Windows, Linux and OS X malware in real-time.

Stay Fast
ESET Cybersecurity won’t slow your Mac down. Full disk scans run smoothly in the background and security updates are automatic. Now, you can work, play, explore and create without slowdowns, annoying pop-ups, or compromising security for productivity.

Seamless Performance
ESET Cybersecurity is easy to install and setup, features intuitive dashboard displays, and provides instructions on how to address security threats. By integrating seamlessly with your Mac, ESET Cybersecurity works quietly in the background with low memory usage and minimal alerts.

The part that interests me the most is the blocking of PC virusses as well – so if your Mac is running in a mixed OS platform environment (we are living in a Windows world after all), the Mac will also intercept the spread of PC virusses. This alone might be reason enough to get it.

If you are interested in trying out ESET Cybersecurity, head over to http://www.esetcybersecurity.com/ for a 1 month trial version.

For anybody who purchases a new Mac these days the first question they typically ask is – how do I get Office on to this? And the answer has always been pretty disappointing – Office for Mac was available, and it was a horribly stunted version compared to the Windows counterpart. Office for Mac 2008 was a slow, unintuitive mess, especially after Office 2007 gained its Ribbon interface. In fact, I was pretty sure Microsoft was purposefully making the Office for Mac suite a stunted excuse compared to the Windows version. Who knows?

Office 2010 for Windows was released a few months ago and it is a brilliant version – the user interface is great, the built in tools have been improved and the speed has increased a lot, especially with start up with apps. In fact, after using Office 2010 at work, and then using Office for Mac 2008 at home you realize how slow Office for Mac was.

Luckily that changes with Office for Mac 2011. I have been running the Beta version for quite a while and I eventually also got hold of the final version, and clearly Microsoft’s Mac division has been working hard to fix Office. The interface has been made cleaner, more powerful, and they have finally made it up to scratch with the rest of the Mac experience.

The product range has been simplified – especially compared to the Windows SKU’s. There are only two versions available: Home and Student (single user package, R999; three-user family package R1299, and Home and Business (single user package, R2499; licensed for two machines, R2699). Both  versions include Word 2011, Excel 2001 and Powerpoint 2011. But the Home Business version gains Outlook 2011 as well.

Outlook 2011

Outlook 2011 is significant because it replaces Entourage 2008, which was has always been a very poor mail, contacts and calendar app. I cannot even explain to Windows users how bad Entourage was – even trying to import a Outlook PST file was impossible with Entourage. Outlook 2011 is almost identical to Outlook for Windows, but of course uses the Mac user interface guidelines, so if you are a Mac junkie for years you will be happy.

Switching from PC? PST import is finally here.

Talking about PST files – Outlook 2011 does away with the PST archive system which creates one giant file, and instead stores each message, calendar or contact entry into a separate file (you can still import your PST file over from your PC if you would like). This is primarily to make Outlook easier to use with Apple’s Time Machine backup solution. This way only delta changes to your mail needs to backed up, and Spotlight can quickly index and access these files.

Outlook's Threaded Conversation view

Overall it is very similiar to Windows in terms of features, but there are a few new features as well. Do you like the unified inbox on your iPhone? You can do the same in Outlook 2011. All your account’s inboxes can populate one inbox if you prefer. If you Exchange at work, make sure they are running Exchange server 2007, previous versions are not supported. This is not as devastating as it sounds – your Snow Leopard mail account has the same limitation. So if you can access Exchange through Apple Mail on your Mac, you will be fine… (Thats a subtle tip, you might not need the more expensive version of Office for Mac 2011)

Word 2011

One thing that always bothered me about the Word 2008 for Mac was that it’s files was not perfectly compatible with the Windows version, and vice versa. Often I would try to open a report that had a bit of formatting, only to see it not render correctly. Word 2011 also includes some pretty great templates – and they need to, because Apple’s Pages includes very stylish templates, but Office has the big advantage of being able to use a massive online library of available templates.

But perhaps the most significant improvement is the addition of Visual basic macros which is finally coming to Mac. I tried a few more sophisticated documents from my Windows machine and did not have any problems. Of course the security conscious Protected Mode is also carried over from the Windows version.

Word 2011 also gains the collaborative features from Office 2011, but it requires a file to be stored online using Skydrive, but you can also use Sharepoint if you have that available to you. Of course it requires the latest version of Sharepoint, and I was unable to test this functionality. Skydrive based collaborative editing was not perfectly realtime in my experience, but it was still very useful.

Who needs Publisher when Word 2011 does the job?

Word also sports a new Word Publishing Layout tool which gives you precise publishing tools to quickly design and perfect flyers, banners and page layouts. Publishing view also gives and innovative new way of handling the image ordering – using a 3D stack to move around objects.

Word 2011 Full Screen View takes away distractions

A small, but potentially very powerful feature is the full screen writing mode which take away all distractions, and makes you concentrate on just your writing. Great.

Excel 2011

Once again macro support is back, which is such an essential part of Excel, but was somehow ignored in the previous version. I was once again impressed by the range of templates available out of the box – for example the personal finance calculators. I was also surprised to see that conditional formatting is also finally available – for some reason it was skipped in the 2008 version.

At last your conditional formatting can be carried between platforms...

The graphics portion of Excel is also finally up to par with the Windows version – graphs and SmartArt features look very good. Im not going to pretend to be a big Excel user, but I can honestly say it is finally good enough.

Powerpoint

In 2007 when Microsoft debuted its ribbon interface, it was Powerpoint 2007 that got the biggest overhaul. Powerpoint 2010 on Windows improves even further on that by including very decent graphics tools – which does not require you editing an image outside of Powerpoint and then copying the image back.

You can now stay in Powerpoint if you want to do image tweaks

Similiar to Word, Powerpoint gets the new image ordering tool which shows you in 3D the layers used. This will take a lot of frustration out of image rich slides, especially ones using the new animation effects. MS has clearly taken a few tips from Keynote, because they do look fantastic without taking away the attention of your audience.

Office's new image reordering tool takes away the guessing in image rich slides and documents

Powerpoint 2011 gets all these new editing tools – like the super easy to use background remover, but video editing options is not available in Office for Mac. I guess they realize that Mac’s come with Quicktime X or iMovie, which is plenty good enough right? Some people might say that Apple Keynote is still the best presentation software – which might even be true, but which office runs on Apple’s productivity suite? For me the major reason I ignored Keynote was that its export to Powerpoint functionaility was almost consistently useless. I stick to Powerpoint thanks.

Conclusion

Its sometimes difficult to get excited about something like Microsoft Office, but with Office for Mac 2008 Macheads have always felt a bit shortchanged. In fact Office for Mac was such a poor product for me that I used to use VMWare Fusion and then booted into Windows 7 on my Mac when I wanted to do “real work”. Office for Mac 2008 was that bad.

With Office for Mac 2011 things have changed – now Mac users can use Office without any limitations. The apps launch quickly, they are easier to use and they do not feel like immitations of the “real thing”. Perhaps the best part of Office for Mac 2011 is that Mac users can now also use Outlook 2011, which is still the defacto standard in PIM software out there. Sure, Apple’s Mail and iCal apps work well, but Outlook is still a polished, well rounded, integrated application.

If you are not too bothered about Outlook, the other apps are still great value for money if you take the Home and Student edition. If you are an Office for Mac 2008 user I cannot recommend this upgrade enough. You will be surprised at how good Office on the Mac really can be.

Microsoft has launched its Office for Mac 2011 desktop suite in South Africa, with a strong focus on collaboration and social networking tools that it says will allow users to work with colleagues and friends anywhere, anytime, and across platforms. After more than two years of hard work, Mac users will be happy to hear that Office for Mac 2011, the latest version of the productivity suite, will be in stores in 100 countries including South Africa by the end of October 2010.

The new version of Mac Office – the first major revision for the suite since 2008 – also includes Outlook as its e-mail client for the first time, replacing Entourage for the Apple machines.

Over 1 billion PCs and Macs run Microsoft Office and Office for Mac – making the Office franchise the most used productivity suite worldwide. The latest offering for the Mac builds on Microsoft’s drive towards allowing you to work the way you want, where you want.

Speaking at the launch in Sandton yesterday afternoon, Lance Thorp, Entertainment and Devices Lead, said that more than ever before, Office for Mac 2011 brings the familiar productivity tools and features of Microsoft Office to a suite of applications that work brilliantly on the Mac. “With the many new exciting feature additions and improvements, this version is shaping up to be the best of Office for Mac yet”, said Thorp.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 adds rich new features to the familiar Office applications, helping you to manage your home and business the way you want, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Most notably are the improvements to Outlook. Outlook for Mac 2011 lets you see your calendar from within your email, as well as allowing you to read and save related emails in a single thread.

Reliable compatibility with Macs and PCs running Office around the world ensures you have the right tools to create, share and collaborate with virtually anyone, anywhere. The new Office Web Apps let you post, access, edit and share Office documents from where you want with nearly any computer with a browser, allowing you to co-author a document with multiple people in multiple locations.

Messenger for Mac 8 enables you to communicate in real-time with audio and video support, and Remote Desktop for Mac 2 so you can drive your Windows-based PC from your Mac.

In store from 26 October locally, the suite will come in two editions at retail, both available with either a single user license, or a multiple user option – Office for Mac Home and Student 2011 (ERP: R999- R1299) and Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 (ERP: R2499- R2699). For better alignment across platforms, the Office for Mac 2011 pricing and edition options, map closer with Office for the Windows operating system.

With all the attention on iPad, iPhone and iPod in the last quarter, you might have started to think that Apple forgot about their Mac business. Seems not.

On 20 October Apple is hosting a “Back to Mac” event with their familiar cryptic invitation card shown above. You can clearly see the Lion in the background. True to Apple’s codenames which stick to the cat family names. Past codenames included Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard and the most recent Snow Leopard. Will the next won be called Lion? I really do not expect them to announce a launch date, but just give a preview, similiar to what they did with Snow Leopard. My big expectation for the next OS X is multitouch. Cannot wait to see a touch enabled iMac, but only if it has the recently patented hinge we wrote about earlier. If you have a look at the Apple logo in the invitation, you will see that it’s on a hinge, so maybe that hints at the new hinge patents. But I really doubt they will upgrade the iMac by now already, but maybe in future.

So what else can we expect? Well the Macbook Air hasnt got an upgrade in more than a year. The standard Macbook Pro has also seen its last upgrade in April 2010, and the XServe hasnt gotten any love since April 2009. I also expect a bigger focus on enterprise features for new Macs and new versions of OSX Server, with better iOS mobile device management coming in future (or at least I am hoping for that).

By the way – if you are planning on buying any Apple hardware, take a look at the MacRumors: Buyers Guide. It shows the upgrade cycles for all hardware and gives recommendations on the purchase timing of the hardware you are interested in. For example their guide clearly states to not buy a Macbook Air at present. Its not a great feeling buying an expensive computer only to see it being upgraded 2 weeks later…

Give us some feedback – what do YOU expect to see on 20 October?