Microsoft to Mac Users: Happy Halloween, Here’s a New Outlook for Mac

Microsoft’s Halloween gift to Mac users? A surprise new version of Outlook for Mac, which was revealed in a company blog post on Friday.

The new Outlook for Mac is available only to Office 365 subscribers and promises faster performance, revamped interface and push support for the Office 365 cloud. Before you download it, though, Microsoft recommends you first get rid of Outlook for Mac 2011 if you still have that older version installed.

In the same blog post, Microsoft also promised a full refresh for Office for Mac (including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) by the second half of next year, following a public beta.

The new Outlook for Mac comes as an increasingly diverse array of email solutions appear on the market: Just last week, Google announced Inbox, a still-invite-only rethinking of your Gmail inbox as a to-do list, while other similar apps like Mailbox have skyrocketed in popularity lately.