Well there's the timeline that got leaked late last year confirming beta is soon, launch later this year. Plus at the windows 10 event, they made a big point that Office was going to be almost universal across all devices, with new version releasing alongside windows 10, which implies that iOS and Mac will see updates/new release at the same time.
I don't buy this whole thing of "universal Office". It's pure a marketing gimmick to me.
Microsoft is marketing a universal Office so people feel inclined to subscribe to Office 365. If I subscribe to Office 365, I will have access to Office in all my devices. My PC, my Mac, my iPhone, my iPad, my Android phone or tablet, and even in the cloud. Office everywhere.
The reality is different. The reality is that Office for Windows is the software people learned to use and trust. Office for Windows is software that has matured over more than 20 years and that became high-quality and used everywhere. Office for Mac has been around for a lot of time as well, and it's a different product. Microsoft has not put the same amount of effort and money in the development of Office for Mac.
Now, Microsoft is using its Office brand to advertise different programs. Suddenly, Office for iOS and Office for Android became part of this Office everywhere strategy. The problem is, Office for iOS and Office for Android are not the same Office people have been using for the last decades. These mobile variations of Office do not have the same features of Office for Windows. They may be crafted for a mobile environment, and be more "adequate", but they are also inferior in terms of features.
If one uses Office for Windows due to its range of features, then he will be disappointed at all these other Offices. They are not the "real" Office. The "real Office" is Office for Windows, and perhaps its neglected brother, Office for Mac. The rest is different software which Microsoft conveniently named "Office" to push sales of Office 365 subscriptions.
Given that, I don't think there would be much evolution in Office for Mac due to this ubiquity strategy. Office for Mac is a complex piece of software that will get updated sometime, but will not be the same as the great Office for Windows. Office for Windows will continue to reign supreme, and Microsoft will continue investing huge amounts of money on it, because it is the flagship software, and the one people will base on to continue buying the Office 365 subscription that advertises the extension of this Office (for Windows) experience to all devices.
Great, isn't it? But the fact, at least for me, is that little has changed. I can perfectly see why Office for Windows is better than iWork for Mac. But I fail to see how Office for iOS is better than iWork for iOS.
----------
I can see it happen:
MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint for free through the App Store...
Same features as the free windows store versions and the iOS apps
There goes our hope for feature parity versions....
I hope I'm wrong though...
Don't expect feature parity. If you want the real thing, you should run Windows and get the Office version for Windows. Office for Mac will continue to be what it is, perhaps a little better, but nowhere near the all-powerful Windows version.
