2 min

Tags in this article

, , , ,

Microsoft has been testing a beta of the Apple-silicon-optimized edition of Teams since April this year. Microsoft executives said on Wednesday that the updated Teams client for Mac would be available to clients in stages over the following months.

Microsoft has been striving to improve its main Microsoft 365 programs for Apple hardware, including Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. According to officials, the next streamlined Teams client should have much-improved speed because it won’t have to operate in emulation using Apple’s Rosetta 2.

According to officials, speed improvement should emerge even when utilizing numerous high-resolution displays for meetings or calls.

Immediate updates

As the officials say, all Mac users, even those with M1/M2-based Macs, will be immediately updated to the new Teams software.

Officials said that Microsoft is releasing a production-grade universal binary version of Teams. The implication is that it will work natively on the full Mac lineup, even those with Apple-only hardware.

Microsoft Teams for Apple Silicon arrived over two years after the company delivered native versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and OneNote for M1 Macs. That is not all Microsoft is working on when it comes to accommodating Mac users.

Office preview build changes from last month

In early July, Microsoft released new Office preview builds for Mac users on Current and Beta channels in its effort to add some new features and fix bugs.

Current Channel Office Insiders on Mac received Office Build 16.63.22070500, which included new PowerPoint and Excel capabilities. PowerPoint users now have access to a new Cameo function, which allows them to embed a live video stream anywhere in their presentations.

In addition, Microsoft added the ability to resize Conditional Formatting Manager dialogue boxes, allowing users to see more rules at once and look at the full formula and range of their rules.