I don't think those are really comparable though, you can't just discount the huge variations in complexity between various third party apps.
Why not? Why can't Microsoft just make an addition to their iOS software for the updated mouse and trackpad APIs?
What is in the nature of the Pixelmators of the world that Microsoft is lacking? Why could those much smaller companies get out the adaptations in about 2 weeks?do
Pixelmator Photo uses a lot of off the shelf stuff from Apple, so much of the trackpad support they "added" came essentially free. All they really had to do was build against 13.4 and make some tweaks.
Your statement is nonsense. Claiming that Microsoft would have more work to adapt to the new pointer APIs makes absolutely no sense.
The Office apps, on the other hand, use an entirely custom rendering framework to create and modify significantly more complex files than images, and much of this framework is affected by how you are interacting with the device.
WTF does the rendering framework have to do with the pointer APIs in 13.4?
As for Apple demoing third-party apps at WWDC? Yeah, they do, this wasn't WWDC, and if I remember correctly no third-party apps were demoed with trackpad support at launch. That to me says Microsoft found out about this the same day we all did.
You failed to look up what I was responding to:
The few times I have seen Apple doing something like that is when they worked together with Logitech to launch a product using the Smart Connector and with Adobe after Photoshop version sucked so bad on iPad and they needed it running since the entire system was going to switch to ARM.
GeoStructural's comment was total nonsense. Apple regularly gives developers a crack at coding to new APIs before the software is publicly announced.
One last point about Pixelmator Photo, the developers also have an app that is a good bit more complex than Pixelmator Photo that's just called Pixelmator. It has a lot more UI elements and functions that interact with a pointer. That app just got trackpad support today.
...and Microsoft still only has it in beta -- still behind the curve.
Here's a list of apps that all had trackpad support within a month or two. The Sweet Setup authors note this isn't the first time Microsoft has been deficient in adopting new features:
"Split View, for instance, was only launched within the last few weeks for Microsoft Word.
It can be expected, then, that Microsoft is going to take its time in implementing trackpad and cursor support. At the time of writing, Microsoft has stated mouse and trackpad support will come to Word and Excel in the fall, providing ample time for current users to become frustrated."
Why can all of those tiny developers do what a $1.5T company can't figure out?