Microsoft Releases Office for Mac With Apple Silicon Compatibility, Universal Build Still in Beta [Updated]

[woocintosh]

Bye bye Microsoft. I don't need you.

 

[Venderious]

All I want is for OneNote not to run so slow

 

[wood1208]

Natively run MS Office will be here. Just matter of time. Comparing time during PowerPC to Intel transition, now MAC user base is so large and constantly growing; Microsoft can't afford to delay natively run MS Office for Apple Silicon. Google office and others like Apple's own office productivty Apps can take share of MS Office market.

 

[UltimateSyn]

Can I get this as a one-time purchase or do I need to sign up for their ripoff subscription plan?

Edit: To clarify, I am not questioning the value of the plan. I think any time I am locked into a lifetime subscription to access an application, song, etc. is a ripoff.

 

[The Cappy]

They are already realising lightroom next month...photoshop 2021 early...you cannot compare photoshop with office (that is in beta) , photoshop is more complex to port, dont believe Apple when you just check a box and its ready

Feel free to post a link where Apple said "just check a box and its ready" about the transition to Apple Silicon. At WWDC they posted at least one full video talking about migration. For most apps it is that simple, though. But for others, it might not be.

 

[woocintosh]

If x86 based hardware couldn't catch up Apple Silicon based Macs and Mac users grow, someday, Microsoft may release Windows running on Apple Silicon Macs.

 

[incoherent_1]

Affinity Photo and Pixelmator will be ready in few days I'm quite sure. Adobe is.... obsolete

This. All the Pros I know have already ditched Adobe. And good riddance.

 

[James_C]

This. All the Pros I know have already ditched Adobe. And good riddance.

Yep, while I am not a Pro, I do consider myself a Prosumer and I ditched Adobe three years ago and use Affinity.

 

[The Cappy]

Natively run MS Office will be here. Just matter of time. Comparing time during PowerPC to Intel transition, now MAC user base is so large and constantly growing; Microsoft can't afford to delay natively run MS Office for Apple Silicon. Google office and others like Apple's own office productivty Apps can take share of MS Office market.

One of the problems with the PPC to intel transition was that CodeWarrior was very popular but it turned out not to be able to make the leap to intel. And I think MS was using its own dev tools. So for some people, the transition was actually quite hard because you had to move the whole project to Apple's suite.

 

[Jbusick7944]

Pretty slick that they got that done so fast.

 

[lkrupp]

So MS gets this ported to the new silicon very quickly, but Adobe may not have their programs like Photoshop ported until early 2021, great job Adobe, lazy sods.

Re-read the article please. These updates from Microsoft are NOT universal binaries and will be running via Rosetta 2 on the M1 Macs. Native M1 beta’s only at this point.

 

[RFolk]

One Note is fantastic, hopefully it will play nice with M1.

 

[lkrupp]

The author of this article needs some reeducation. It’s not Office 635 anymore, it’s Microsoft 365. That change happened earlier in the year.

 

[lkrupp]

This. All the Pros I know have already ditched Adobe. And good riddance.

Adobe is doing very well these days so why are they still in business if what you say is true, hmmmmm?

 

[johannnn]

Re-read the article please. These updates from Microsoft are NOT universal binaries and will be running via Rosetta 2 on the M1 Macs. Native M1 beta’s only at this point.

It is universal, it will not run via rosetta 2. Yes it's only in the insider beta channel. But it is universal, it will not run via rosetta 2.

 

[Mr. Dee]

Microsoft are much more on the ball this time with the move to Apple Silicon - I remember the pain of having to use Office via Rosetta during the prior PowerPC to Intel transition, Microsoft took forever to release a Intel version of Office for the Mac.

Office 2004 ran just fine using Rosetta on Intel Macs. It’s just that if you depended on VB for your apps that wouldn’t work. Otherwise, I couldn’t tell the difference.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I’d say you have that backwards. Tim has little clue what he’s doing. Look at Apple’s revenue breakdown. 55% of it is from the iPhone and iPad. Products Apple introduced in the last five years of Steve’s leadership.

33% of it comes from Services, Home, and Wearables. This category (minus wearables) was started under Steve, and he got it up from nonexistent to 14% in the last 10 years of his life.

The last 11% is the Mac - unchanged from where it was when Tim took over a decade ago, and not really a category Steve did much with in his last five years.

===

In contrast, I’d say Satya Nadella knows what’s he’s doing at Microsoft. Under his leadership, they’ve aggressively moved into cloud compute, entered the hardware end of PCs with the Surface, and released Windows 10, which is arguably a better OS than macOS (certainly it was a much bigger leap as far as computer OSs go than anything else seen in the past 15 years.)

Steve Ballmer was an idiot - he couldn’t get out of the way soon enough - but Nadella seems to rival Gates as the biggest influencer of where Microsoft is now.

Windows 10 better OS is debatable. I supported it for years and the amount of troubleshooting I had to provide made it frustrating. I personally never had any issues with it.

 

[GeoStructural]

They never really understood what their customers wanted and most importantly what they wanted Microsoft to be.

Leadership matters... cheers to Tim Apple.

“They never really understood what their customers wanted” —> You are describing Apple right there, especially Steve Job’s-era Apple.

 

[Squeak825]

Actually I have just downloaded the fast insider Beta 16.44 and it is in fact Universal Binary - Good job Microsoft

View attachment 1660703

What version of OS is that? Is that Big Sur? My System Information on 10.15 doesnt show the final column of build type

 

[DEMinSoCAL]

Can I get this as a one-time purchase or do I need to sign up for their ripoff subscription plan?

Ripoff? 6 users for $100/yr for the whole suite PLUS 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage for EACH USER is a ripoff? That's $16/user per year.
Plus you get new versions. Retail purchase of Office is >$200 and you're stuck with that version. I'll let you do the math as to how many years of M365 you pay for before you reach the cost of 1 version of retail Office.

Remember, too, 1TB of iCloud is $120/yr and that doesn't include ANY software!

 

[James_C]

What version of OS is that? Is that Big Sur? My System Information on 10.15 doesnt show the final column of build type

Yes it is Big Sur Release Candidate 2 Public Beta.

 

[incoherent_1]

Adobe is doing very well these days so why are they still in business if what you say is true, hmmmmm?

I never said “in the whole world” — I just said “that I know.”

That said, just because a company is making tons of money doesn’t mean they’re delivering a quality product. Not many people say to themselves “Man! AT&T has great value and service! This huge bill I pay each month is totally worth it!”

 

[JMO1]

Is this the Mac version or windows version of office 365?

 

[Jaro65]

Microsoft are much more on the ball this time with the move to Apple Silicon - I remember the pain of having to use Office via Rosetta during the prior PowerPC to Intel transition, Microsoft took forever to release a Intel version of Office for the Mac.

Under Satya Nadella, this really is a different Microsoft than it was then.

 

[UltimateSyn]

Ripoff? 6 users for $100/yr for the whole suite PLUS 1TB of OneDrive cloud storage for EACH USER is a ripoff? That's $16/user per year.
Plus you get new versions. Retail purchase of Office is >$200 and you're stuck with that version. I'll let you do the math as to how many years of M365 you pay for before you reach the cost of 1 version of retail Office.

Remember, too, 1TB of iCloud is $120/yr and that doesn't include ANY software!

I just really dislike the business model of paying indefinite subscriptions to have access to a computer application. I want to pay for it once, and receive the necessary bug fixes and security updates for that major version. If I want the next major version, I'll either have to pay full price or pay a subsidized upgrade cost, but I don't want to be locked into a monthly subscription for the rest of my life just to edit spreadsheets (yes, I know there are more capabilities, but the exaggeration highlights my point).

I'm not saying it's not a good value, I'm saying I don't want apps to be subscriptions. I feel the same way about music, by the way. I don't want to be locked into a subscription to access my music library, either. There is solace in relative permanence.