The first major update to Microsoft’s Office for iPad adds a number of high-profile and much-requested features, including PDF export, support for third-party fonts, image cropping, pivot tables, and Presenter View. Also updated was OneNote for iOS and OS X.

The Fire Phone smartphone is Amazon’s latest foray into consumer hardware, after its Kindle Fire tablets and Fire TV streaming video box. Phone buyers seeking maximum device versatility and flexibility should just get an iPhone or Android handset, though, because the Fire has too many limitations and pointless razzle-dazzle.

Running out of ports on your Mac? Thunderbolt docks address this by replicating one Thunderbolt port into two, and adding an assortment of other ports. Belkin offers one unique model, while many rivals are working from a common Intel reference design.

Amid a recent middling upgrade to the MacBook Air line, some have wondered whether Apple’s ultrathin notebooks are starting to lag behind the competition. Despite the lack of Retina displays and other minor minuses, the MacBook Air line holds up fairly well against modern PC Ultrabooks.

Google Drive edits no more. Google has moved the iOS app’s document- and spreadsheet-editing features to a new, separate Docs and Sheets apps. Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the St. Paul Pioneer Press was baffled by this, but then realized the move changes little.

Microsoft famously tends to get its products right on the third try, so will the new Surface Pro 3 tablet soar where previous Surface models sank? The tech giant hopes a bigger screen, thinner profile, upgraded stylus, and other enhancements will do the trick.

With the release of OneNote for the Macintosh in March 2014, and recent updates to that program, Microsoft has filled out its OneNote lineup. Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the St. Paul Pioneer Press compares OneNote to the popular Evernote, and finds that Microsoft still has work to do.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata falls madly in love with the new Mac Pro, and gives serious consideration to buying an entry-level version of the professional desktop Mac. But is it really the Mac for him? He has to set emotion aside and ask hard questions.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata runs the just-released Office for iPad through its paces, providing a full review and challenging it with real-world Office documents that bring Apple’s iWork apps to their knees. Read on to find out how it fares.

Lucifer, call the furnace repairman: Microsoft finally unveiled the much-rumored iPad version of its popular Office productivity suite. Office for iPad includes the familiar Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, available as individual downloads. Microsoft previously made another Office app, OneNote, free for Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows and Windows Phone. Those wanting unrestricted use of the other iPad apps will be disappointed. Although anyone can download Office for iPad to harness it as a reading and presenting tool, access to editing features requires an Office 365 subscription, like its iPhone sibling. Such subscriptions start at $6.99 per month or $69.99 a year for personal versions of Office 365. Microsoft today has good news for iPhone and Android users, as well: the Office Mobile apps for those platforms are now free for home use (businesses still need to pay). This brings those mobile apps in line with the also-gratis Office Mobile app for Windows Phone.The announcement came at a San Francisco media event keynoted by Satya Nadella in his first major appearance as the company’s new chief executive.

Microsoft has released the much-rumored Office for iPad, which is free for reading Office documents, but editing requires an Office 365 subscription.

When the fifth Apple II rolled off the assembly line in 1977, it went to Team Electronics in Minneapolis inside a leather case festooned with an Apple logo (mysteriously lacking a bite mark). That makes the Team Electronics store, which eventually became Twin Cities institution FirstTech, the first and oldest continually operating Apple reseller. Alas, FirstTech is calling it quits, citing pricing pressure from national resellers after Apple recently loosened restrictions on minimum prices. FirstTech has already closed its Rochester, Minnesota store, which opened just months ago, and will shutter its Minneapolis headquarters on 29 March 2014. A TwinCities.com report by TidBITS contributor Julio Ojeda-Zapata has the fascinating details, plus a video excerpt from the “Welcome to Macintosh” documentary with background on how FirstTech came about and its historical importance in the Apple world. “And it all started in Minnesota,” the video notes.

In the third of a series of articles looking at solutions for mobile workers, the St. Paul Pioneer Press’s Julio Ojeda-Zapata, a lifelong Apple fan, gave the Microsoft Surface a chance and was surprised by what he found.

In the second of a series of looks at perhaps-unexpected hardware choices for Apple users, the St. Paul Pioneer Press’s Julio Ojeda-Zapata turns his attention to Chromebooks, laptops essentially built around a Web browser that turn out to be surprisingly compelling for certain audiences.

In the first of a short series of articles looking at perhaps unexpected hardware choices for those in the Apple world, Julio Ojeda-Zapata, reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, explains why the iPad Air is the perfect tool for his trade.