November 21, 1985: Following Steve Jobs’ departure, Apple comes close to signing its own death warrant by licensing the Macintosh’s look and feel to Microsoft.

The deal, between Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Apple CEO John Sculley, comes hot on the heels of the Windows operating system’s release. The pact gives Microsoft a “non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, nontransferable license to use [parts of the Mac technology] in present and future software programs, and to license them to and through third parties for use in their software programs.”

Oh, boy!

The newest beta of Microsoft Office gives iPad users the option to convert handwriting done with an Apple Pencil or other stylus into text using Apple’s Scribble system. It’ll should be available to all in the near future.

Apple’s handwriting-recognition system uses AI to recognize letters and words, and will allow users to quickly edit a document or spreadsheet on the go with a stylus. But it could also be used to write entire Word docs.

A recent restoration project brought vintage Mac MP3 player Audion back from the edge of oblivion. You can get Audion, and its more than 800 wild and wooly custom user interfaces, for free.

If you’re interested in how software design has evolved, you’ll love this totally trippy flashback to the bad old days when we all crammed our hard drives full of downloaded MP3s.

If you’d rather deal with more pressing matters, we’ve got other new apps to showcase in this week’s roundup. EZ Estate will help you get your final affairs in order. A new RSS reader will make you fall in love with an otter. You can display your HomeKit scenes in iOS widgets and more.

Updates to Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for iPad bring greater support for trackpads and mice. The new versions, which began rolling on Monday, also includes updated start screen and a new ribbon of feature menus.

Whether you’re working from home or at the office, Microsoft Office Suite is probably part of the picture. Excel, Word, Outlook and the rest of the software package prove fundamental to the modern workplace. So if you find yourself with some extra time, these lessons mean you can gain some super-marketable skills.

It’s time to get certified!

Microsoft just brought Dark Mode to Outlook for iOS. And this is just the start of giving many more applications in the Microsoft 365 product suite this feature, which puts white text on a black background.

There aren’t many applications more widely used than Microsoft Office. No matter where you work, you’ll encounter Office, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and the rest. So no matter where you work, it’s worth getting certified in MS Office suite.

Apple’s latest advertising campaign for the iPad Pro touts how well the tablet works as a PC replacement.

The funny new ads, released today, use real tweets from real people to highlight how the iPad Pro excels over old-school computers in areas like speed, Wi-Fi, productivity and viruses. Each clip is only 15 seconds long — and they all exhibit a playful tone that’s similar to the old “Get a Mac” campaign.

Watch all four right here:

If you’re going to own a Mac, you should maybe put it away somewhere if you’re expecting a visit from Clippy.

Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon learned that lesson the hard way when he was talking up the launch of Windows 10, Microsoft’s latest OS last night. As is his wont, Microsoft Word’s built-in assistant appeared at random, and everything was cordial until the talking paper clip spotted the MacBook on Fallon’s desk.

You can check out the rest of the clip below.

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