Microsoft Office Apps Top App Store Charts One Day After Release

[charlituna]

Absolutely laughable, to the point where I call BS

It's likely not BS. But it is likely doing the applicant a huge favor.

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Something that I was thinking about regarding Office on the iPad: remember when Jobs was thrilled to have Bill Gates providing software for the original Mac? Microsoft helped keep Apple afloat for many years.

Something to keep in mind with that 'thrilled' was that a big piece of it was pure PR. MS had slated to yank Office for Mac and then got slammed with losing a law suit over copying the Mac OS GUI. Rather than make them pay a pure cash fine, MS was forced to keep updating Office for Mac for a set period of time. And they were forced into buying and keeping several thousand dollars in non voting stock shares. Both of which had much better long time effects than a simple check would have. Steve saying he was thrilled about the partnership and not bringing up the law suit made him look like the bigger man (and not a petty twerp) which Apple needed at that point in time as much as partnerships and cash

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I agree twice. The new iWork for Mac is a step backwards. It's all rubber-bandy and has that stupid format box over on the right.

I rather like the right hand format box. And I like that it adjusts to show me only what is applicable to what I'm working on. I hated the 3-4 little boxes that ended up all over the place. And ribbons can be harder to read.

That said the lay out could perhaps use some work, certainly restoring features from iWork 09 is way in order. One that I used a lot was being able to drag contact groups from the address book into Numbers to make an instant table. Fortunately I still have Numbers 09 but it's annoying having to remember to go open that and not just select my file etc.

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Not unless you have your university's email and password login for their office 365 account

Actually no. Most universities have a deal with MS that they are basically issued a discount code they can give their students to get the account under their own name.

can i use those if i can get office 365 for free through my university?

And yes as I understand it, these apps do work with that existing account

 

[anthonymoody]

Yes, that is a problem, but I think everybody can understand why Microsoft is doing that. Just have a look at the iWork apps. They work with iCloud only and don't allow direct saving to Dropbox. Everybody is trying to push his own cloud solution and users must choose a side. This is not how technology should be, but this is how it is at the moment. It is the battle of ecosystems and we are right in the middle of it.
It would be really great if we saw companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft interoperate more, but I guess this is more of a dream than a realistic goal..

FYI you can absolutely save directly back to Dropbox from iWork apps. You can also open documents stored in Dropbox from directly inside iWork apps.

You need to use a service like dropdav (which is a paid service) or one of the free providers I've seen floating around which add webdav capability to Dropbox.

It's what I use and works great.

 

[AppleScruff1]

Imagine being the one asked to repair said iPads.

Pressure washers?

 

[Bibbler]

You can doubt his story all you want but you aren't running his business.

And neither do you. And the fact is his "story" is so ludicrous that no one over the age of 15 would believe it.
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On another note, I had to delete Excel almost as soon as I downloaded it because the first thing it did was crash. I thought to myself why did I download something I don't need? Then I decided not to download anything else.

Wow, I guess the entire corporate world will quit using Excel now because Adonis, the MacRumors poster, doesn't need it... As a matter of fact, the fact that "you don't need it" tells us a little about your skill set.

 

[samcraig]

Office 365 covers every application provided with Office Professional, gives you 20GB of OneDrive space, access to the mobile apps, and lets you slap them on 5 computers.

If you just want to use one Office app on the iPad, then it's not too spectacular a deal. Probably a little too expensive for such a limited use case. But if you're using multiple apps across multiple machines, up to and including the iPad, then it's a helluva deal.

Renzy - since you're familiar - what would that really work out in value to be.

IE - how much is 20gb of storage in the cloud + all the software (how much is a retail disk that is not cloud based with 5 licenses).

Add in mobility - and while I don't love the subscription model - $99 or less seems pretty darn reasonable in terms of VALUE.

 

[RPeanut]

FYI you can absolutely save directly back to Dropbox from iWork apps. You can also open documents stored in Dropbox from directly inside iWork apps.

You need to use a service like dropdav (which is a paid service) or one of the free providers I've seen floating around which add webdav capability to Dropbox.

It's what I use and works great.

I haven't looked into third party programs but there are ways to integrate any cloud service in office at least on the PC side, I would think something similar will be available when the new Mac version will be released. It's not very elegant at the moment but it works.
http://www.howtogeek.com/149335/how-to-add-dropbox-and-other-cloud-services-to-office-2013/

 

[petvas]

FYI you can absolutely save directly back to Dropbox from iWork apps. You can also open documents stored in Dropbox from directly inside iWork apps.

You need to use a service like dropdav (which is a paid service) or one of the free providers I've seen floating around which add webdav capability to Dropbox.

It's what I use and works great.

That might be true, but by default there is no option to do that. Most users don't even know that it can be done because they don't see Dropbox as an option. Of course it's nice that it works as a Webdav connection.

 

[Renzatic]

Renzy - since you're familiar - what would that really work out in value to be.

IE - how much is 20gb of storage in the cloud + all the software (how much is a retail disk that is not cloud based with 5 licenses).

Add in mobility - and while I don't love the subscription model - $99 or less seems pretty darn reasonable in terms of VALUE.

Rough guesstimation time!

Office Pro runs about $250 without any special discounts. The Onedrive space? The lowest MS offers for a sub is 50GB for $25 a year. Based on that, we'll say that the 20GB you get with 365 is a $10 value. So with that in mind, we'll say a year's cost for the software alone is about $89. All considered, it'd take you just under 3 years of subbing before you match the box price. Around 3 1/2 if you keep hitting up Amazon for the $70 discount card every year.

But that's not considering multiple computers. I think Office Pro has the standard one desktop, one laptop licensing scheme. MS does (or did) offer a 5-pack deal for Office for about $150, but it was for Home and Student. Not everyone needs the full suite, they won't need to upgrade every major revision, and the free Skydrive account offers up more than enough space to keep a family's documents safe and sound. If it's still available, this would probably be the better deal for personal use.

So, 365 isn't horribly expensive. If you break it all down and play your cards right, it'd take forever to match the box price, and you wouldn't get all the perks. But, like I've said before, it all depends on if you really need it or not. If you do, have at it. It allows you to mitigate the costs of the box version over time, and gives you a few nice bonuses in tow. If you don't, the free or less costly alternatives will serve you about as well.

 

[497902]

I would upgrade, but not every new version or even every other new version.

Just a question: Do you actually read my posts? I already stated to you that it would still be cheaper to get Office 365 (on enough devices) than to buy even only every second version and that you shouldn't skip more than one version because Office for Mac goes end of life after 5 years, so no security patches anymore.

The people who want to give Microshaft more cash are people who are willing to pay $99/yr for life. Everyone who keeps trying defend subscription software for consumers keeps coming up with theoretical examples. "Well if I have two Macs and three PC's and five tablets and 28 iPhones...." And no one who is coming up with these scenarios are professing to be in that situation themselves, but, there must be someone out there who is, right? Maybe. Even probably. But the number of individual consumers in that position and who use Office that much are few and far between.

The only people willing to give Microsoft more cash are the ones who don't know mathematics and just think that subscriptions are always more expensive. If you do basic calculations you'll see that the subscription model is the far better option, unless you only want to install it on one device or want to do illegal stuff. (like using multiple devices with only one license) I don't defend subscription models, I only want to give people advice to give 'evil' Microsoft less money. And these theoretical examples apply to reality, why the heck wouldn't they?! Maybe not for you or your friends, but there are hundreds of millions of Office users in the world and many of them would save tons of money if they'd only calculate instead of resisting against a subscription model they think is more expensive when it's not. Buying an non Office 365 Microsoft Office product is only cheaper when you only have one device you want to install it on, two in the case of Office Home & Student. Everything else is cheaper with Office 365.

P.S. I'd be willing to bet that 99.99% of people here (including yourself) have bought software and installed it on one more than one machine or installed it on a friend's machine, regardless of what the "license" says.

Again that's illegal!

 

[petvas]

Rough guesstimation time!

Office Pro runs about $250 without any special discounts. The Onedrive space? The lowest MS offers for a sub is 50GB for $25 a year. Based on that, we'll say that the 20GB you get with 365 is a $10 value. So with that in mind, we'll say a year's cost for the software alone is about $89. All considered, it'd take you just under 3 years of subbing before you match the box price. Around 3 1/2 if you keep hitting up Amazon for the $70 discount card every year.

But that's not considering multiple computers. I think Office Pro has the standard one desktop, one laptop licensing scheme. MS does (or did) offer a 5-pack deal for Office for about $150, but it was for Home and Student. Not everyone needs the full suite, they won't need to upgrade every major revision, and the free Skydrive account offers up more than enough space to keep a family's documents safe and sound. If it's still available, this would probably be the better deal for personal use.

So, 365 isn't horribly expensive. If you break it all down and play your cards right, it'd take forever to match the box price, and you wouldn't get all the perks. But, like I've said before, it all depends on if you really need it or not. If you do, have at it. It allows you to mitigate the costs of the box version over time, and gives you a few nice bonuses in tow. If you don't, the free or less costly alternatives will serve you about as well.

I agree, but reading your post made me realize that Office for Mac isn't coming to the Mac AppStore any time soon..If it did, then there cannot be any restriction in the number of devices used.
Since I don't use OneDrive (I posted elsewhere about its issues), I will keep paying for Dropbox and that makes the Office subscription less valuable for me, but still ok.

 

[Renzatic]

I agree, but reading your post made me realize that Office for Mac isn't coming to the Mac AppStore any time soon..If it did, then there cannot be any restriction in the number of devices used.

I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a 365 Sub in there, with the Office software hosted on Apple's servers. I mean what are the chances that someone has more than 5 machines hooked up through the same Apple account? Plus, I'm sure Cook would be thrilled over getting a 30% cut a month off every sign up made through the MAS, and Nadella would be getting the remaining 70% off a wider audience.

It could see it happening for home users quite easily.

Since I don't use OneDrive (I posted elsewhere about its issues), I will keep paying for Dropbox and that makes the Office subscription less valuable for me, but still ok.

You could use both like I do. I use Dropbox for all my little files I share around everywhere along with linking up some of my iPad apps, and OneDrive for backing up my big stuff. If you had a reason to, you could symlink some folders together into both accounts, and have some handy redundancy in case you need it.

 

[petvas]

I wouldn't be surprised if you saw a 365 Sub in there, with the Office software hosted on Apple's servers. I mean what are the chances that someone has more than 5 machines hooked up through the same Apple account? Plus, I'm sure Cook would be thrilled over getting a 30% cut a month off every sign up made through the MAS, and Nadella would be getting the remaining 70% off a wider audience.

It could see it happening for home users quite easily.



You could use both like I do. I use Dropbox for all my little files I share around everywhere along with linking up some of my iPad apps, and OneDrive for backing up my big stuff. If you had a reason to, you could symlink some folders together into both accounts, and have some handy redundancy in case you need it.

That's true, I could use both and I might as well do it. I am just thinking of a good usage scenario for me and I am not done with it yet. I have 106GB on Dropbox and 48GB on OneDrive. Symbolic links don't work with OneDrive, but I could use symlinks to point to the OneDrive folders..(the other way around)
I might as well use OneDrive to copy my work files and Dropbox for all private stuff...The thing is that currently I have enough storage on Dropbox and there is not any big reason to change that, especially because I like to have the full OS X support, that OneDrive currently doesn't offer.

Update: I found another reason not to use OneDrive at all: It has a 2GB file limit for file uploads. I was thinking I might use it for my home videos as a backup, but even that is not possible..What a shame. Dropbox has no limits whatsoever..I guess you get what you pay for!

 

[hvfsl]

Yeah, everybody can't be a great forward thinker like you. Isn't it difficult being so great???

Have fun making up ridiculous arguments for the point of arguing. As an alternative, you can simply grow up.

If you have a legitimate response to the points I am making, I am open to have my opinions changed.

But since you have descended to personal attacks, I guess you have run out of anything sensible to say. So you are right, probably best to end this discussion here.

 

[kds1]

Just a question: Do you actually read my posts? I already stated to you that it would still be cheaper to get Office 365 (on enough devices) than to buy even only every second version and that you shouldn't skip more than one version because Office for Mac goes end of life after 5 years, so no security patches anymore.



The only people willing to give Microsoft more cash are the ones who don't know mathematics and just think that subscriptions are always more expensive. If you do basic calculations you'll see that the subscription model is the far better option, unless you only want to install it on one device or want to do illegal stuff. (like using multiple devices with only one license) I don't defend subscription models, I only want to give people advice to give 'evil' Microsoft less money. And these theoretical examples apply to reality, why the heck wouldn't they?! Maybe not for you or your friends, but there are hundreds of millions of Office users in the world and many of them would save tons of money if they'd only calculate instead of resisting against a subscription model they think is more expensive when it's not. Buying an non Office 365 Microsoft Office product is only cheaper when you only have one device you want to install it on, two in the case of Office Home & Student. Everything else is cheaper with Office 365.



Again that's illegal!

Dude, I could load Office 2008 on my system right now and create documents and get along just fine. This whole "well after five years, you shouldn't use it any more" is complete B.S. Office 2008 STILL WORKS. You don't live in reality, you live in theory. The reality is, you can install your copy of office one more than one device, regardless of the license, and the cops aren't going to come knocking down your door. THAT is reality, and THAT is what most people do. And the reality is that MOST people DO NOT NEED Office on "Multiple Devices" and the reality is that MOST people don't use Office enough to justify Microshaft siphoning $99/year from your pocket for the rest of your life.

For the average everyday consumer, it's a bad deal, and there should be the option of just purchasing the iPad versions of the Office apps that you want.

 

[maflynn]

Expensive? Initial pricing of full version Office 2011 Home/Student was $119 and included 3 licenses.

So you're not finding the value in it, great. That's you but clearly many people are otherwise it would not be such a popular app on the app store and near the top on revenue as well.

To each his own, you'll be unable to use MS office for the iPad and will not get the new version of Office for free, you get 5 computers not 3 and 5 tablets. Plus the 20GB of OneDrive storage.

If you don't think that's worth the money, then don't buy it, but many people do seem to see a value and are embracing it.

I may not like subscription pricing but its not a new pricing model, in fact much of enterprise computing is based on subscription pricing. You can continue using Office 2011 and that's fine, but I think I'll further extend the power of my iPad with it.

To each his own.

 

[497902]

@kds1: You're just as funny as the Windows XP people, it still works. LOL Do I really have to say that it's a bad idea to use software where there are no security updates anymore?! If you think Office 365 is a bad deal then why don't you come with facts and math instead of ignoring mine?

 

[Alphabetize]

I don't think I'll ever use the Microsoft Office apps as I am very satisfied with the iWork apps, but I'm glad Office is finally on the iPad—hopefully there will be more professional apps and the iPad grows even more.

 

[patseguin]

I'm new to Office 365. I use Outlook, Word, a Excel, and PowerPoint at work does the subscription merely give me the opportunity to save the files to the cloud and then I can view and edit them on my iPad?

 

[petvas]

I'm new to Office 365. I use Outlook, Word, a Excel, and PowerPoint at work does the subscription merely give me the opportunity to save the files to the cloud and then I can view and edit them on my iPad?

You get much more than that. The subscriptions offer the following:

• 5 licenses for Office on PC/Mac
• 20GB OneDrive space
• Office for iPad with editing capability (without subscription you can just view files)
• 60 Sky minutes/month
• Ability to share the subscription with 5 people (including you). Every one gets his own 20GB OneDrive, but they must share the 5 Office licenses.

 

[Toltepeceno]

You get 20Gb OneDrive space and not 50.

There are 5 licenses, each can get 20gb. That's 100gb.

Ah, I see you posted that above me.

I will at some point consider the 67.00 a year route. Even for two people that would take two licenses of "bought" software, based on 250.00 each license as mentioned earlier in the thread, it wold take roughly 7.5 years to equal the same payout and with more benefits like the storage. If using all 5 licenses it's even a better deal, so for at least 2 people I don't get the hate.

For one person with one computer (unless you have multiple devices) it's not as great, for someone with just an ipad not a good deal at all.

 

[petvas]

There are 5 licenses, each can get 20gb. That's 100gb.

Yes, exactly.

 

[Toltepeceno]

Yes, exactly.

If you use all of the licenses it's roughly 1250.00 of "bought" software and even at 100.00 a year that's 12.5 years to pay the same amount as buying the software AND that includes new versions and extras. THAT is a very good deal in my opinion.

Not arguing, I think I'm agreeing with you.

 

[petvas]

If you use all of the licenses it's roughly 1250.00 of "bought" software and even at 100.00 a year that's 12.5 years to pay the same amount as buying the software AND that includes new versions and extras. THAT is a very good deal in my opinion.

Not arguing, I think I'm agreeing with you.

Yes, I see it similarly. The only thing that I don't like is that OneDrive isn't as good as Dropbox, but I guess this isn't a problem for most people.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Only a fool would not consider the cost of Office 365. One may end up concluding its of value, but certainly he/she needs to evaluate cost:benefit and their budget before jumping in. The idea "people subscribe to lots of things, what's one more" is financially reckless.

Honestly, I can't really see why anyone would spend the $120 per year for personal use. That represents a massive increase over the old "Home and Student" edition, and for features that most consumers will never use. Office 2011 itself is overkill for personal use and 20GB of free cloud is not that hard to come by. I have 20GB on dropbox and 50GB on Box that I never pay a dime for.

Business use is a different discussion, but for consumer/personal use I see few justifications of spending $120/year ad infinitum for mere access to word processor, presentation and spreadsheet apps when there are lower cost alternatives available.

Well... at least you have options.

You can still purchase a traditional perpetual license for the time being. I think it's $140 and you can use it forever. But that's only for one computer.

Or... you can use the copy of Office you already have. It's not gonna stop working. How many people still have a copy of Office 2003 that they're still using?

I totally understand not wanting to pay per year to use a piece of software for personal use.

So... do you need the capabilities of Office or not? Why did you have Office in the first place? Shouldn't you have at least tried some of the other free options first before you plunked down the money for an office suite?

Yes... Microsoft has changed the rules. The people who had Office for personal use and who probably didn't use it too often aren't happy about these changes. But like I said... you can still buy a traditional copy of the software or continue to use the version you already have.

Then there are other people who love these changes. Subscription software that is always updated that you can install on up to 5 computers and tablets... that's actually pretty cool.

There are people at Microsoft who are much smarter than me... and they proposed these changes. They know they are gonna ruffle some feathers... but they are looking at their bigger picture.

It's do or die time. If Office is no longer the value it once was at any price... you are free to pursue other options.

But I don't think Microsoft is gonna back down on this one.

 

[mabhatter]

And then got deleted by thousands of people when they discovered it's $99.99/year.

that's the price of the full 365 subscription. so for that $99 you get it on Mac and PC as well. expensive, but not a rip off.