Do you really think so? We are still about 3-4 months from the release of Yosemite, right? There is still plenty of time for Microsoft at least announce the next Office for Mac.
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Microsoft Office 2015 (2016?)
- Thread starter skaertus
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Do you really think so? We are still about 3-4 months from the release of Yosemite, right? There is still plenty of time for Microsoft at least announce the next Office for Mac.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Yes, at this point I do. If they announce it shortly, then I think we'll see it around Yosemite, the longer we hear nothing, the less likely seeing anything soon from MS occurs.
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
Yep, but they had said that information will be forth coming this spring, and spring has come and went. 🙁
Yes, they said that. All I can think is that the next Office for Mac is way behind the schedule. In April, the Mac development team said they were still making the next Office for Mac and there was no release schedule they could reveal. Two months later, there is no word on it.
Last time, Microsoft released a beta version six months prior to the actual release of the product. This time, there is no beta around. If Microsoft decides to release a 6-month beta for the next Office for Mac, then there is no way this thing is going to be released before 2015.
What do you guys are doing meanwhile? I mean, Office for Mac is simply not on par. Office for Windows is great, but Apple's trackpad under Bootcamp is terrible. And Parallels is good, but it is a bit on the slow side, even on a 15-inch retina MacBook Pro.
Sometimes I feel I should have just bought a Windows laptop instead...
ScottNWDW
macrumors 65816
Yes, and they had also said there were no plans to put Office on iPad and then one day it was there out of the blue. Anything is possible.
Forget parity between platforms. M$ will -never- provide a version of Access for OSX. If they did so, it would be an admission that Windows has lost (and would result in a huge drop in market cap).
I thought Access issue was rooted more into technical issue with Windows and OS X, not necessarily a marketing one. Anyways, where is the new office for Mac? I thought it was suppose to come out sometime mid 2014. 🙁
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
That makes no sense at all, how could the inclusion of an application be considered that windows has lost 😕
Well, not necessarily.
Lots of people buy Windows machines because they cannot afford, or do not want to pay for, a Mac. People who buy a US$ 500-600 Windows laptop will not suddenly turn to a US$ 1,000+ MacBook just because Microsoft delivered feature parity between Windows and Mac versions of Office. And most people pay a very low price for their laptops.
In addition, feature parity is different from providing the same applications on all platforms. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote are all available for Mac, but they do not have the same features they do have on Windows. Microsoft could make all them similar, even if it chooses not to release Access or Publisher for Mac.
What applications are you using, how much memory does your MBP have and how much have you allocated to the VM?
I run Win 7, with 8GB ram with ~ 2gigs for Parallels and my system is great running excel, outlook etc.
I have a 15-inch retina MacBook Pro (early 2013) with 8 GB RAM.
It usually runs Safari, Chrome, Outlook, DevonThink Pro Office, other apps on the background (Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive, Evernote). I run Windows 8.1 in Parallels with 2 GB allocated for the virtual machine and I run Word and Zotero basically.
Office for Mac is so bad I had to install Parallels just so I could use the Windows version. It's literally the only thing I need Windows for.
Also, I really hate how many of my fellow Mac users are so dismissive of Office. A lot of Mac users think that just because they don't need Office, nobody needs it. At my job we do a lot of fairly complex Excel work, and something like Numbers just doesn't cut it. Numbers can't even do PivotTables for God's sake! In my world that's not an advanced feature, that's a bare minimum requirement.
Also, I really hate how many of my fellow Mac users are so dismissive of Office. A lot of Mac users think that just because they don't need Office, nobody needs it. At my job we do a lot of fairly complex Excel work, and something like Numbers just doesn't cut it. Numbers can't even do PivotTables for God's sake! In my world that's not an advanced feature, that's a bare minimum requirement.
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Yes, you are absolutely right.
Mac users simply state they do not need Office and that Office is bloated and has a lot of useless features that only make the program run slower. Very far from the truth. It seems to me a bunch of Mac evangelists who hate Office just because it is developed by Microsoft, or perhaps because the Mac version is inferior.
Microsoft Office for Windows is a great piece of software. It is fast and light, and yet it has an incredible amount of features. And the features are easy to use and to access. Microsoft did a great job with Office 2013 for Windows. However, Office 2011 for Mac is far from it. It is heavy and crashes more than it should. And it is less intuitive to use than its Windows counterpart. And it has less features. Yes, Office for Mac is inferior to Office for Windows.
Some Mac users simply ignore it and turn to iWork instead. iWork is a joke as a productivity suite. It may be good for doing homework and printing at home. If you need any advanced feature, then it is useless. And Pages for Mac uses even more memory than Word for Windows, even though having less features.
Others turn to OpenOffice or LibreOffice. Yes, they are good office suites and they have a lot of features. However, they still do not compare to Microsoft Office for Windows. Just give all them a try.
I wish Microsoft released a Mac version of Office that is so good as the Windows version, or at least almost as good as. I hope Microsoft is taking the time to do that, but I am afraid it is not.
An office suite is the most important piece of software I need. Mac hardware is great, and my MacBook Pro is the best piece of hardware that I have ever owed, miles better than my last Windows laptop. However, I simply cannot do with Apple's puny iWork or Microsoft's sub-par Office for Mac. I need the real thing and, if the only way of getting the real thing is running Windows, if nor Microsoft nor Apple provide me with a decent alternative for Mac, then I might turn to a Windows laptop instead the next time I buy a computer.
marc55
macrumors 6502a
maflynn
macrumors Broadwell
I refuse to use Office for Mac as well, I have a bootcamp partition set up and I alternate between OS X and windows depending on my needs.
Traverse
macrumors 604
This is a very good post and I agree. Office 2011 is quite bad. On my rMBP all my apps launch instantly, but word and excel often take 4-7 bounces (not the best measure) before they launch. It shouldn't be that hard to open blank Document.
As for iWork. I never used Numbers and Keynote extensively, I just found it a mostly pointless skill and a workflow inconvenience. Pages however I used to love. I don't like nor use the new version. The UI seems childish, and so many features were broken. I liked the inspector where I could see ALL my tools, not just the "dynamic" sidebar.
But Pages 09 remains my favorite Word Processor/Layout tool. I once created a graphical review/report thingy for one of my professors with a pages template. He was so impressed that I got bounse credit! 😀
That being said. I now use Office for iPad, and Pages 09 is no longer compatible with iOS. This means that Pages documents I create are stuck on my Mac unless I export them as a PDF. I will probably always have a place for Pages (until OS X drops support), but I am willing to leave it and go to Word as my mainstream word processor IF Microsoft can create a Windows equivalent. I've used Word, Excel, and Access on Windows 7 and 8.1 through VMWare Fusion and they are a joy to use compared to their Mac counterparts. And iOS compatibility with seamless sync is enough to win me over.
The only thing I fear is if Microsoft designs Office for Yosemite and makes 10.10 a requirement, or makes it a Yosemite port into Mavericks. I hope they keep their own design style (OneNote) for multi platform consistency.
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Doesn't that become a huge hassle? I mean, my situation may be different, but I have to view several Word documents a day from my professors. To have to boot into Windows over and over seems like such a pain.
I also have Excel sheets that I work on daily, I'd hate to have to boot windows each time.
Office for Mac is bad, but it gets the job done. However, if I am working on a large Excel project (or need Access) then I will boot into Windows, but Office Mac works for casual use.
I kind of like Pages interface. What I don't like about it (and never liked, not even in the 2009 version) is the lack of features. Every word processor has features that Pages lacks. Pages cannot even split a footnote in more than one page, and this is a deal-breaker for me. Pages never handled cross-references, and this is a feature every other word processor has.
Pages may be good for your use, but depends on what you use it for. You said you created a graphical review/report. Pages is indeed good for creating beautiful pages. It has good desktop publishing capabilities... at least for a word processor. However, if you need advanced word processing features such as cross-references, indexing, and so on, then Pages will hardly meet your needs.
I just hope Microsoft makes a good Office for Mac. It will probably follow the OneNote design. Now I want to know when it will be released or at least announced. Microsoft has already missed Q2, and I hope it announces something this month.
glenthompson
macrumors demi-god
Out of curiosity I just tried launching both Word and Excel on my 2011 MBP with SSD. I had to reboot the system last night for the OS X update so neither had been loaded recently. Each brought me to a blank document in less than 2 seconds. Both were faster than Aperture.
I have never had a problem with compatibility documents/spreadsheets shared with Windows users but I don't do that many and most are fairly straight forward. While the UI is different from Windows that doesn't bother me since I've quit using the Windows version.
ScottNWDW
macrumors 65816
Never had any issues using Office for Mac on my MacBook Pro since 2011 nor my new iMac (since April 2014). I use Office at work and have never had any compatibility issues either. I also have a Windows laptop that is about 4 years old now and have been an Office 365 subscriber several months now. Haven't had any major issues loading documents on any platform, whether it be Windows, Mac, or iOS. The only issues I have had have been in iOS and they primarily were related to the fonts that are not available in iOS.
Traverse
macrumors 604
I agree. Pages was good for that specific situation, but more professional features such as your footnote splitting and cross references are simply not there. And even if it was, I'm sure that Office would handle it better. I don't think Apple ever meant for iWork to compete with Office for power users, it's a shame though because it had much potential. For the casual user or the unique situation it does a good enough job.
I don't get it either. It was the same way on my old 2011 MacBook Pro with an SSD. Fresh install of both Office and OS X, but it remains laggy to open.
I've never had a Word document compatible issue, but I have had, albeit rare, issues with Excel. Some formatting or formulas would become messed up with working between Office 2011 and Office 2013. Thus, if it is a spread sheet that is too be sent to a colleague or a professor I will at least open it in Office 2013 if not simply do it in 2013.
Actually, Microsoft did a good job at keeping them compatible. I remember Office 2008 had some compatibility issues with the Windows version, but I did not find them in Office 2011.
Said that, Office 2011 is still inferior to its Windows counterparts. Word 2013 for Windows is currently using only 60 MB, while Word 2011 for Mac is using 150 MB. And Word for Mac has less features. Simple as that.
And now it appears Microsoft is seeking testers for a beta version of Office for Android, http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/2/5863717/microsoft-office-android-tablets-beta. It seems that Office for Android will come before a new Office for Mac!