Microsoft Office 2015 (2016?)

[skaertus]

And I don't buy the argument that Apple has any imperative to make iWork as a full featured product equivalent to Office. Microsoft has been producing Office for over 20 years they can bloody well make a package that's as close as possible between to platforms.

http://blogs.office.com/2015/05/04/office-2016-public-preview-now-available/?WT.mc_id=SOC_FB_2016Preview_blog&Ocid=Excel_Social_FBPAGE_Microsoft Excel - microsoftexcel_20150603_188274071

Yes, Microsoft is developing Office for 20 years now.

What I don't understand is why Apple still doesn't have its own fully-featured office suite. How Apple wants to keep its own computer platform relying on an office suite produced by its main competitor?

iWork was initially launched in 2005, 10 years ago. Before that, Apple had AppleWorks, which dates back from 1985, 30 years ago, and which Apple choose to discontinue twice. Apple could have 30 years of office code right now, but it keeps choosing to discontinue its office suites to begin again from scratch over and over again. Apple's own office suite, being AppleWorks or iWork, could compete head-to-head with Office for Windows should Apple had wanted it to. However, instead of that, Apple changes the interface, removes features, makes everything simpler and easier, whenever it does not choose to discontinue the suite and begin with a new one. If you want something more complex done, you have to turn to Microsoft Office.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Microsoft made a choice to code Office for Windows and Mac separetely so they could better integrate with each platform.

They could have had a portable backend which implemented all the features and simply built a Mac frontend. This wasn't done because they built the whole thing to be so heavily reliant on Windows APIs and libraries that the Mac version was basically a rewrite.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

What I don't understand is why Apple still doesn't have its own fully-featured office suite. How Apple wants to keep its own computer platform relying on an office suite produced by its main competitor?

1. Because MS has invested billions in the development of Office over the years and it would cost a massive amount of money to build something with a similar feature set.

2. Because Office basically has a monopoly, any suite Apple made would have to have perfect compatibility. As has been seen over the years through OpenOffice, iWork, Google Docs etc, no one has been able to get perfect compatibility (and Microsoft has worked very hard towards this goal of non-compatibility).

 

[snifferdogx]

Yes, Microsoft is developing Office for 20 years now.

What I don't understand is why Apple still doesn't have its own fully-featured office suite. How Apple wants to keep its own computer platform relying on an office suite produced by its main competitor?

iWork was initially launched in 2005, 10 years ago. Before that, Apple had AppleWorks, which dates back from 1985, 30 years ago, and which Apple choose to discontinue twice. Apple could have 30 years of office code right now, but it keeps choosing to discontinue its office suites to begin again from scratch over and over again. Apple's own office suite, being AppleWorks or iWork, could compete head-to-head with Office for Windows should Apple had wanted it to. However, instead of that, Apple changes the interface, removes features, makes everything simpler and easier, whenever it does not choose to discontinue the suite and begin with a new one. If you want something more complex done, you have to turn to Microsoft Office.

Microsoft has basically had the monopoly on Office suites since the mid-late 90s, and today is well and truly the gold standard for all office-related file formats, e.g. documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.

If you were Tim Cook looking at that would you bother spending so much time and effort to create an office suite comparable to MS Office? I certainly wouldn't.

Microsoft have got the monopoly on this one. They can bloody well serve their customers.

 

[skaertus]

1. Because MS has invested billions in the development of Office over the years and it would cost a massive amount of money to build something with a similar feature set.

2. Because Office basically has a monopoly, any suite Apple made would have to have perfect compatibility. As has been seen over the years through OpenOffice, iWork, Google Docs etc, no one has been able to get perfect compatibility (and Microsoft has worked very hard towards this goal of non-compatibility).

1. Yes, but Apple could have improved its own office suite over the years and could have spent more on development. It just chose not to. Look at WordPerfect Office, for instance. It has an impressive feature set, and it competed head-to-head with Microsoft Office in terms of features for some time. Now, following its diminishing popularity, the development is slow, and Corel, the current owner of the suite, does not seem too interested in improving it. Take a look at some other software. Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro for Mac are two word processors with powerful feature sets. While they may not have the power of Microsoft Word, one has to remember that both are not that old and they were developed by small companies which lack the resources of giants like Microsoft and Apple. OpenOffice and LibreOffice are open source products and have several features. My point is, Apple could have make iWork (or AppleWorks, whatever) much more powerful and competitive with Microsoft Office, as it has far more financial resources to put up a much better product than small companies and non-profit organizations.

2. Office has a monopoly, but its current file format is a standard. It seems to be very complicared, and nobody was yet able to fully decipher it, as far as I know. But, again, nobody tried really hard. How hard can it be for a company like Apple to spend some time and money to understand a published standard? OpenOffice and LibreOffice are open source office suits, and they do lack financial resources to implement lots of things, including full compatibility with Office; and Google's business is based on its search capabilities, not its office suite.

 

[skaertus]

Microsoft has basically had the monopoly on Office suites since the mid-late 90s, and today is well and truly the gold standard for all office-related file formats, e.g. documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.

If you were Tim Cook looking at that would you bother spending so much time and effort to create an office suite comparable to MS Office? I certainly wouldn't.

Microsoft have got the monopoly on this one. They can bloody well serve their customers.

What if Microsoft doesn't? If you were Tim Cook, would you leave your loyal customers without a decent office suite, even knowing that an office suite is perhaps the most used piece of software in the world?

Apple didn't have to make an office suite comparable to Microsoft Office in everything. Lots of money are spent on enterprise support, and Apple would only have to make software that is comparable in terms of feature sets. Definitely not a huge amount of money here.

 

[sracer]

1. Yes, but Apple could have improved its own office suite over the years and could have spent more on development. It just chose not to. Look at WordPerfect Office, for instance. It has an impressive feature set, and it competed head-to-head with Microsoft Office in terms of features for some time. Now, following its diminishing popularity, the development is slow, and Corel, the current owner of the suite, does not seem too interested in improving it. Take a look at some other software. Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro for Mac are two word processors with powerful feature sets. While they may not have the power of Microsoft Word, one has to remember that both are not that old and they were developed by small companies which lack the resources of giants like Microsoft and Apple. OpenOffice and LibreOffice are open source products and have several features. My point is, Apple could have make iWork (or AppleWorks, whatever) much more powerful and competitive with Microsoft Office, as it has far more financial resources to put up a much better product than small companies and non-profit organizations.

Apple is a hardware company. Period. The only reason why they developed software applications was to make the hardware appealing. When you reflect back on 5-8 years ago and consider the software that Apple bundled with their systems (and sold as add-ons), it offered a compelling package.

Apple HAD to do that in order to have a quality out-of-the-box experience. As Apple hardware gained popularity, their effort spent on software decreased. They now feel that they don't have to be the software "water-bearer" for their hardware platforms anymore.

What Apple doesn't see (or more likely, doesn't care) is that their approach to software was a bit unique but connected with "unique" people. I still have ClarisWorks and AppleWorks on my Windows systems, iWork 09 on my OSX systems. Once one makes the shift to how iWork 09 works, it can be a more productive tool than MS Office (for many things).

 

[kmaute]

What if Microsoft doesn't? If you were Tim Cook, would you leave your loyal customers without a decent office suite, even knowing that an office suite is perhaps the most used piece of software in the world?

Apple didn't have to make an office suite comparable to Microsoft Office in everything. Lots of money are spent on enterprise support, and Apple would only have to make software that is comparable in terms of feature sets. Definitely not a huge amount of money here.

Dude, we get it. Please buy a PC and make yourself happy. OS X is not going to work well for you. I'm sorry about that. Your priorities ≠ Apple's priorities. It sucks but it's the truth.

 

[RickyB]

Yes, Microsoft is developing Office for 20 years now.

What I don't understand is why Apple still doesn't have its own fully-featured office suite. How Apple wants to keep its own computer platform relying on an office suite produced by its main competitor?

iWork was initially launched in 2005, 10 years ago. Before that, Apple had AppleWorks, which dates back from 1985, 30 years ago, and which Apple choose to discontinue twice.

The later AppleWorks was essentially a rebranded ClarisWorks, which was renamed when Apple brought elements of Claris back in-house. Claris was renamed "Filemaker Inc" which continued to make Filemaker Pro.

The original 80's AppleWorks was for the Apple II computer and is unrelated to the later Mac (and Windows) version.

 

[MLinneer]

I find iWork a viable alternative to Office, at least on the Mac and for what I use it for. On iOS, not so much. iWork and Office on iPad are pretty evenly matched in feature set and speed. The new Office (I know it's a beta) still doesn't perform to Microsoft's advertised promise of "One Office on all devices." It's current version is slow, buggy, and missing what many people consider basic features. Outlook is feature poor compared to the Windows version. It won't even sync with Outlook.com? Ever try printing or exporting to PDF from OneNote? No Access and no Publisher. Even Word has lost the few publishing layout features it had in 2011. And it's over 7Gb installed.

Apple has missed an opportunity I think. I watched the WWDC with fingers crossed that iWork would get some attention. Keynote blows PowerPoint away but Pages and Numbers need to be whipped into shape. At least linked text boxes... that's the #1 complaint I've seen, though I work around it. But nothing, not a word, a mention, or anything. My fear is that iWork will be, or has already been, orphaned.

I'm not looking for an Office replacement. I want an Office alternative. Office does what it does very well but I don't need all that most of the time. iWork is not and never was intended to be an Office replacement. It's an alternative intended for home, student, and small business people who own Macs, not the huge enterprise networked warehouse full of PC's. It should be the best document production suite available for Macs. It should make beautiful documents... beautifully.

Look, as Mac people we're supposed to "Think Different." So if Microsoft want to bring something made for Windows and that looks like Windows to the Mac, then God bless them. But I want something different. How about a document authoring suite actually made for Mac and OS X? Using native OS X features. Mail merge using your Contacts, easy import and editing of Photos, and full font ligature support? Apple could do this. They already had a good foundation with iWork '09, they just need to finish the job with iWork '14.

 

[skaertus]

Apple is a hardware company. Period. The only reason why they developed software applications was to make the hardware appealing. When you reflect back on 5-8 years ago and consider the software that Apple bundled with their systems (and sold as add-ons), it offered a compelling package.

Apple HAD to do that in order to have a quality out-of-the-box experience. As Apple hardware gained popularity, their effort spent on software decreased. They now feel that they don't have to be the software "water-bearer" for their hardware platforms anymore.

What Apple doesn't see (or more likely, doesn't care) is that their approach to software was a bit unique but connected with "unique" people. I still have ClarisWorks and AppleWorks on my Windows systems, iWork 09 on my OSX systems. Once one makes the shift to how iWork 09 works, it can be a more productive tool than MS Office (for many things).

Apple is a hardware company. But it also advertises how better its products are in comparison with the competitors. While they produce hardware, what makes this hardware unique is the software that runs on it (OSX/iOS). The out-of-the box experience is definitely great, but what if you need anything else?

As for iWork being more productive than Microsoft Office, I fail to see how. It may be definitely simpler, as it has far less features. But Office's features save me a lot of time and make me a lot more productive. I simply find iWork much harder to work on as I have to do lots of things manually which take a lot more time than they would do on Office, which does them automatically.

 

[Logsi]

There still seems to be a 255 character filesystem limitation going on with saving documents on a file server.

One annoying thing is that it no longer says that it's too long but just says it cannot save and creates a temporary file instead and often deletes the original for you...

 

[umzyi]

New updates 15.11.0 are available. Update your apps guys!

 

[valdikor]

New updates 15.11.0 are available. Update your apps guys!

Do you please have a link for the changelog? I updated on both my computers, forgot to click to see what's changed and now can't find it anywhere :-/

 

[snifferdogx]

New updates 15.11.0 are available. Update your apps guys!

I know! I just clicked on AutoUpdate and there was first an update for AutoUpdate (v 3.1.1 or something) and now it's downloading 15.11.0. Biiiiiig download.

 

[petvas]

I don't have a change log but what everybody can see is a new theme..

 

[snifferdogx]

Cosmetic enhancement to Outlook: now it has the pale blue title bar. Same with OneNote, a purple title bar.

They *still* have the stupid icon outlines for the font & paragraph tabs in the Home ribbon. Why, oh why. It just makes it look archaic and messy.

It looks like Microsoft is trying make Office have the "same" look and feel throughout the various operating systems.

Still have to test out some of the bugs that were in Word and Excel.

 

[umzyi]

Ok here is change log:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3048692

 

[umzyi]

I have found outlook to be more stable, the contact pictures are rounded icons instead square in outlook.

Word has a new feature to pick up where you left from (like in windows version).

But I have found that the scrolling is back to very choppy and laggy. I have done a fresh install but it is the same. Sometime it can become very fluent but mostly it is very bad.

Will keep updated once I will find more things.

 

[snifferdogx]

Ok, Home tab in Office 2016 Preview for Mac vs Windows.

Call me stupid, but wouldn't all those icon outlines in the Mac version be making it look more messy and cluttered? The minimalistic flat design in the Windows version looks much more modern and tidy.

Looking at Office 2011 for Mac now it just seems like an absolute jumbled mess, and these icons retain 2011's design.

 

[sracer]

Ok, Home tab in Office 2016 Preview for Mac vs Windows.

Call me stupid, but wouldn't all those icon outlines in the Mac version be making it look more messy and cluttered? The minimalistic flat design in the Windows version looks much more modern and tidy.

Looking at Office 2011 for Mac now it just seems like an absolute jumbled mess, and these icons retain 2011's design.

View attachment 560516

It's definitely a matter of personal preference, but I agree with you that the icon outlines add visual "noise".

I use LibreOffice with an MSOffice theme and I find it to be much easier on the eyes. Hopefully Microsoft will adjust things before it goes live... or maybe Office 2016 will end up as little more than a re-skinning of 2011.

 

[MLinneer]

I hate to admit it but Office is getting better. I helped a friend do some revenue/expense analysis last night and Excel worked like a charm, especially pivot tables and a time line chart. It still takes longer to load than 2011 but once it's up it runs well. I'm going to rerun an activity breakdown I do for a client every month, (20,000 rows, 20+ columns, 6 tabbed pivots) and see how it works.

 

[snifferdogx]

It's definitely a matter of personal preference, but I agree with you that the icon outlines add visual "noise".

I use LibreOffice with an MSOffice theme and I find it to be much easier on the eyes. Hopefully Microsoft will adjust things before it goes live... or maybe Office 2016 will end up as little more than a re-skinning of 2011.View attachment 560540

Are LibreOffice and OpenOffice somehow related? I get confused on these things.

Anyway, I just wish MS would add the paste previews in the context menus, and get rid of those stupid icon outlines.

 

[thejasonhowell]

Are LibreOffice and OpenOffice somehow related? I get confused on these things.

They are related. Kind of a long story. But I think the Wikipedia entry for LibreOffice will tell you what you want to know.

 

[pmhparis]

2. Office has a monopoly, but its current file format is a standard. It seems to be very complicared, and nobody was yet able to fully decipher it, as far as I know. But, again, nobody tried really hard. How hard can it be for a company like Apple to spend some time and money to understand a published standard? OpenOffice and LibreOffice are open source office suits, and they do lack financial resources to implement lots of things, including full compatibility with Office; and Google's business is based on its search capabilities, not its office suite.

"Nobody tried hard"?!?! Right there you show that your opinions are based on ignorance.

The DOCX "format" has multiple instances where the definition refers explicitly to "how office does it" without describing what that is. Yes, Microsoft gamed the norming organisations to buy votes to label DOCX a "standard" but that does not make it one. Docx is little more than a XMLized data dump of the memory of Office applications & unless you duplicate the source code (& often it's bugs) there is no deciphering it completely and correctly..