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But, as the first app from this version of Office to be released out of the chute, there are some signs that Outlook 15.3 is not quite finished.

The latest surprise release of Outlook for Mac 15.3 is largely what youd hope to get in an Outlook refresh: At long last, a version that looks and works almost identically to the Windows version.

This is great news if you live exclusively in an Exchange environment, but you may want to mute your celebration if you also deal with other calendars and contact lists created elsewhere.

For many years, there were, at best, rudimentary and semi-functional Mac versions of Outlook, which created a self-fulfilling cycle that the Mac was not ready for or worthy of use in the enterprise.

Various versions of Outlook Express and something called Entourage performed some or most of Outlooks functions through the early 2000s.

It didnt help that Entourage never quite reached parity with Outlook as an Exchange client.

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It wasnt until late 2010, with the release of Office Mac 2011 (the most recent version to date) that Entourage was buried and a full version of Outlook for Mac was released.

But even then, the user experience was different from -- and less capable than -- the Windows version.

In fact, it was dissimilar enough that moving from one platform to another was frustrating.

Surprisingly, Microsoft released a no-extra-charge Mac version shortly thereafter through its Office 365 SaaS service.

The big news is that, at long last, Outlook for Mac has more or less reached parity with Outlook for Windows.

Rather than worrying about making things Mac-like, Microsofts designers have become confident enough to build out their own design language across platforms.

The interface is cleaned up and icons are simplified.

Outlook for Mac looks and works like the same Outlook youll see anywhere.

The Ribbon interface is cleaned up in Outlook 15.3 and mirrors the Windows version.

Unread messages are clearly denoted by a blue bar to the left of the message abstract -- much easier to see than the bolding that marked unread messages in the previous version.

The toolbar and ribbon for Outlook 2011 (top) featured textured and shadowed icons that attempted to be Mac-like but became dated with frequent OS updates.

Outlook 11.5s ribbon (bottom) relies on Microsofts own design language.

The icons are cleaner and the lettering smaller, reflecting Offices interface across all platforms.

Links to the various pieces of Outlook -- mail, calendar, contacts, tasks and notes -- have been moved from the left column under the mailboxes to the bottom margin of the window.

They used to be easy to miss, especially if you had many accounts and many folders.

A nice touch: In Calendar view, theres a new Weather Bar on the right side of the screen, above the calendar.

It shows the forecast for today and the next two days, either for your current location or any other place of your choosing.

I tested Outlook 15.3 on a three-year-old MacBook Pro running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite, the most recent release).

The app was more than acceptably responsive -- better even than Apples native Mail app.

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