Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Microsoft Reportedly 'Actively Working' on Office for iPad and Mac App Store

Mr. Pink said:
I was supposed to read the logos as, "WHO?" right?

What's the advantage of this over iWork though? I'm asking from an ignorant standpoint. I really don't know.
Click to expand...

Hopefully Word will have (1) flawless formatting; (2) track changes; and (3) the ability to view/create footnotes.

These are absolutely essential features for anyone who uses Word in a professional capacity. Honestly, if pages had these features I could care less whether Microsoft puts out their version or not. But as of right now, pages is a toy and is useless to me, since I have to haul my laptop around anyway.
 
firestarter said:
...but Excel absolutely blows Numbers away.
Click to expand...

Amen!!

I gave iWork and honest, 3 month, all out usage... I even removed all MS from my MacBook Pro to force myself to learn the Apple system. Keynote rocked (as good as PowerPoint), Pages was usable (almost as good as Word) and Numbers was a complete waste of time.

Even though I am a total Apple fanboy, I have to admit that there is only one intuitive, widely supported, easy to learn spreadsheet. It's name is MS Excel.

If Office comes to the iPad with 70%+ of the desktop versions features, it will sell big.
 
To me, the best part is about bringing MS Office to the Mac App Store.
Who knows, maybe we'll be able to buy the apps un-bundled, just like the iWorks... Hey, I can dream, can't I?
 
This must have been a hard decision for them. On the one hand, the iPad is the dominant tablet by many miles so supporting the iPad will generate a lot of revenue and keep Office relevant.

On the other hand, if they want to drive customers to Windows 8 this hurts that effort as Office users will be satisfied with the iPad and not need a Windows tablet.
 
Bigsk8r said:
Amen!!

I gave iWork and honest, 3 month, all out usage... I even removed all MS from my MacBook Pro to force myself to learn the Apple system. Keynote rocked (as good as PowerPoint), Pages was usable (almost as good as Word) and Numbers was a complete waste of time.

Even though I am a total Apple fanboy, I have to admit that there is only one intuitive, widely supported, easy to learn spreadsheet. It's name is MS Excel.

If Office comes to the iPad with 70%+ of the desktop versions features, it will sell big.
Click to expand...

Excel is imho one of the best applications, period. Never ever been a huge fan of MS (well... except for Excel & Xbox), but they've always done right with Excel. Nothing to this day beats it.

w00master
 
They'd be stupid not to do this. Office is still the shiniest jewel in the Microsoft crown. If they want it to stay that way they'll eventually have to make good iOS and Android versions.
 
It'd be nice if they finished adding Lion-support first. I hate having to still save files, and not being able to take a presentation full-screen in editing mode stinks.

But for people asking what the advantage over iWork is ... are you serious? Excel is the only legitimate spreadsheet application I've ever used. Word is great for writing scientific papers [as long as they're formatted with Latex afterwards], and PowerPoint has never done me wrong. Pages would probably be fine for about 70% of what I do, and I'm sure Keynote would fill all my needs. But let's not pretend for a second that there's a real alternative to Excel.
 
neutrino23 said:
This must have been a hard decision for them. On the one hand, the iPad is the dominant tablet by many miles so supporting the iPad will generate a lot of revenue and keep Office relevant.

On the other hand, if they want to drive customers to Windows 8 this hurts that effort as Office users will be satisfied with the iPad and not need a Windows tablet.
Click to expand...
I see it as them using the iPad to work out the "touch" part of Office apps and then save the best features for Windows 8 tablets.
They have always left features out of the Mac versions of office.
Either way, one has to remember that MS is a software company first.
So even if a Windows 8 tablet flops, they will still have the iPad to sell Office apps.
 
boohooo at all those nay-sayers just bc its from "microsoft". lets face it, we'd be screwed without a mac version of the office suit (i know i would be) and i welcome more and more companies seeing the opportunity to develop something for the iPad. its not like ur forced to buy it
 
This can be HUGE for Enterprise. A lot of companies are using Office and this will make getting iPads for their traveling employees instead of a notebook a much easier decision.

Microsoft is finally realizing that it needs Apple. =)
 
MacRumors said:
Microsoft Reportedly 'Actively Working' on Office for iPad and Mac App Store[/url]
Click to expand...

Outlook on the iPad? (shudder) Can we get communicator & entourage too? I can't wait to see all fifteen million settings in Word buried in a hundred different places... or maybe, if we click our heels together and wish really hard, MS will bring their innovative "Ribbon" to the iPads UI...

Hahahahahaaaaaaa


...but yea, excel is pretty sweet. It's one of my two most used apps. Numbers has some catching up to do.
 
Hopefully Excel (at least for Mac) will have function parity with the Windows version. Anything more fancy right now, like using a Solver, requires me to start Windows and use Excel there.
 
ThunderSkunk said:
Outlook on the iPad? (shudder) Can we get communicator & entourage too? I can't wait to see all fifteen million settings in Word buried in a hundred different places... or maybe, if we click our heels together and wish really hard, MS will bring their innovative "Ribbon" to the iPads UI...

Hahahahahaaaaaaa
Click to expand...

I get your point, but what you don't get is more apps is GOOD for iOS and GOOD for the ecosystem. The ribbon? Yeah, it's piece of ****, but imho there is no spreadsheet application that has come close to Excel. None.

I welcome Excel coming to iOS. I do hope this rumor is true.

w00master
 
neutrino23 said:
This must have been a hard decision for them. On the one hand, the iPad is the dominant tablet by many miles so supporting the iPad will generate a lot of revenue and keep Office relevant.

On the other hand, if they want to drive customers to Windows 8 this hurts that effort as Office users will be satisfied with the iPad and not need a Windows tablet.
Click to expand...

The Office suite is still their bread and butter. Microsoft could eschew the mobile/tablet business right now and not really suffer much (other than their dignity). Microsoft has shown they can do very well just selling software and nothing else. With Office THE dominating word processing, spreadsheet, PPT products in corporate America, making Office available to the dominating tablet (one that is being clamored for by corporate drones and execs), really stands to make them a lot of money and further embed them into the Office ecosystem (if that is even possible). It possible they could make more money on iPad Office than all the phones and tabs they produce. Plus, the R&D hardware costs are eliminated.

I see it as a Win-Win for everyone.
 
w00master said:
Excel is imho one of the best applications, period. Never ever been a huge fan of MS (well... except for Excel & Xbox), but they've always done right with Excel. Nothing to this day beats it.

w00master
Click to expand...

Maybe it's true. The only amazing things that Microsoft ever created were XBox and Excel. Maybe... Clippy too!

jk
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Office is great. Bring on the iCloud support!
 
I'd really like to see the next Office for Mac utilize iCloud to sync Word, Excel, etc. documents between iPad and Mac. Pretty much do what Apple did for iWork, but supporting formats that most of the world uses.

iCloud really has amazing potential if Apple lets developers integrate it into their apps.
 
Sounds good!

Now if we could get Adobe to hurry up and release PhotoShopTouch!! Why Android got first dibs is beyond me. Im sure they sold 100 copies by now.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

If true will finally push me over the edge to buy an iPad.
 
asphalt-proof said:
Weird but i read that as "idio-tranked" then went looking for that button because I can think of some posters that would be perfect for. But not the one you were responding to.:)
Click to expand...
Hahaha, I went and Googled "idio tranked" and look at the top result I got.

I love the internet.
 
Microsoft loves the iPad.

Think about it.
If all iPad users use ActiveSync to be able to use Exchange for mail and calendaring purposes, and via MS Office for iPad make use of Microsoft's apps and stay compatible with the PC's running Windows and Office, and even be able to use more Microsoft services on Windows Servers (say, for 802.1X Wifi authentication to AD, SMB file servers, maybe even Sharepoint) Microsoft could arguably make more money off iPads than Apple! ;)
 
If it's true that MS and Apple are working behind the scenes to stunt Android's growth, this would be a killer move but it would require concessions from both Apple and MS. Frankly, I'm indifferent to Office on the iPad, but imagine how cemented iOS would be in the enterprise if this were done and were done well? MS would have to concede or delay their own efforts in the tablet space, and Apple would have to let iWork become a second-class citizen, but this would put Android (at least as far as tablets go) at a serious disadvantage.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back