if this is true, I'd buy it immediately. I'd tell everyone I know to buy it. I'd love to be able to use my iPad in ways this would open up. Wouldn't replace my laptop, but it would sure be nice not to have to rely on it as much as I do...
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Microsoft Reportedly 'Actively Working' on Office for iPad and Mac App Store
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Definitely. Excel is so much better than Numbers but its the other way with Word and Powerpoint. Word definitely has more features than Pages interns of cross referencing, indexing, bibliography (pages has a baby version of it). But Pages is way simple and straightforward. Cross referencing is one of the things I expect in Pages '12; keynote on the other hand is untouchable. Powerpoint is no where close.
But I would love to have Office on my iPad.
Back then the Mac versions came out first, and the two were virtually identical as to look and features. I was using word and excel on Mac OS 7.1 and it was far better than anything Win 3.1 could muster.
Yup. The Office suite would actually be the killer app for the iPad that Android tablets wouldn't have. Incorporating the iPad into an enterprise workflow would be 100 times easier. The iPad's ubiquity would skyrocket even more.
On the flip side, MS Office would cannibalize iWorks sales, but with their 30% cut and the fact Office is industry standard, Apple would come out ahead anyway.
The guy is trying to say Word/Excel from the 90's is more powerful than what's available on the iPad today. Since a modern day iPad has way more computing power than a 90's desktop, the whole you gotta cut out 99% of desktop functionality in get it to work on a tablet argument is nonsense. At most, you just have to redo the UI and adapt it for the OS.
Pages for the iPad is nothing more than a $10 MS Wordpad. Is it because anything more than Wordpad won't work on a tablet? No, it's because Apple's software devs aren't really trying.
Yeah, I was thinking that MS was going to ride it out a bit longer to see how well their new phone/ tablet system would do. Maybe they decided on a trigger based on sales of their products
- above sales trigger = screw apple
- below sales trigger = they can't ignore the iPad sales numbers any longer
You know MS admits to having Bing use Google search results to help power their own search, so while Bing doesn't depend on Google search 100%, it depends on it more then I would like.
Plus Google today is far more then a search engine.
As for Google copying iOS, sure, and Apple did the same right back, as long as they both bring some innovation to the table, it doesn't both me if they take the good idea from each other.
Microsoft has a sleeping giant on there hands. OneNote is the best note app ever made it trumps even Evernote. Except its awesome only on the PC which is a fail. Iphone App sucks. No Ipad native app and no Mac Version hurt it. But It would give Microsoft an upper hand. You may not agree but do you know how many people that would pay through the nose if they could get it on all platforms? Alot.
A Lamborghini blows away a Honda as well, but I don't need those features. That's the case with 95% of the use of Excel.
It's way overpowered for what most people do, but for the 5% (accountants, engineers, etc) it's a must have.
For some things like simplicity and great looking graphs, I actually prefer Numbers.
As an accountant, I would have to disagree with your percentages. Numbers is convoluted in how it works, it is not intuitive. And there are some fairly simplistic things that are not in Numbers, it's not just major scientific functions or something. Also, it's not that Excel is overpowered for all those people, it's that they don't know what they need or what they could do with it. I constantly try to teach people just how useful learning something could be. Doesn't usually work, though.
Office 2011 seems to work well on Lion. I did not load the software while running Lion, got it with Snow Leopard and upgraded around it, never had an issue.
A Mac App Store version would be nice, especially if you could just buy the parts you want, like iWork. I never use PowerPoint but I do use Keynote.
I'd rather they keep the features there in case they're needed. Or even put them in as a microtransaction so those who need them can buy them. As an engineer, one of the drawbacks of iOS Pages is that it won't let me enter equations. That basically cripples what I can do with the iPad, both at work and at school. Now I can't use the iPad for any document where I need to create or modify an equation and have to go to the nearest desktop.
By limiting features on their tablet, Apple is also creating unnecessary problems for themselves by fragmenting their ecosystem. And you wonder why the desktop version of iWorks doesn't sync to iCloud.
This ain't news.
They had been developing for a few years.
Some reports claim a build was ready and later pulled my MS in favor of keeping it on upcoming Windows 8 tablets.
Why this rumor is drudged up now is strange
They had been developing for a few years.
Some reports claim a build was ready and later pulled my MS in favor of keeping it on upcoming Windows 8 tablets.
Why this rumor is drudged up now is strange
Next year eh? Mac users will always be the bastard children in the MS software universe.
Outlook won't work right with iCloud until 2016 though.
I quite like Office 2011, use it over iWork.
What I'd really like is for them to release OneNote for Mac...
What I'd really like is for them to release OneNote for Mac...
This! 10 times This!
I would fork over $100 just for this functionality on any word processing software that could run on an iPad.
Why does MS Office necessarily need to have an "advantage?" Isn't more 3rd party support for iPad (and iOS overall) good? I think it is.
Then again, this is a news report on Microsoft on an Apple site... I shouldn't be surprised for the start of negative feedback.
Aren't you guys tired of this PC vs. Mac stuff? I am. Let's move on.
w00master
I've been tired of it for a long time. Office 2011 for OS X has been fantastic for me (read: that doesn't mean I have anything against iWork or any free Office suite).
Exactly...same is true for the other Office products. Using them to read/display the content is one thing...using them to actively sit and CREATE is difficult on an iPad or any tablet. Document creators (like myself) need a real, physical keyboard so we can type our 100+ words per minute...not the virtual keyboards which literally limit me to about 30 words per minute. Then there are the enhancements like trying to highlight a phrase, then bold it, then change the font size, etc. Folks like me know a billion keyboard shortcuts and the mouse is still a fantastic device as it approaches its 30th birthday.
I think tablets have a LONG way to go as far as being content creating devices. Read a PDF or Word doc? Sure.
Lastly, it would be interesting to see just how easy it is to save the documents on the iPad (I hate that I don't have any kind of Attachment Folder on the iPad for my email attachments!!) as well as copy them off. I don't want to have to be forced to email myself a doc every time. Nor do I want to physically connect to a pc. "Syncing" the iPad means I am now syncing everything so that would be an annoyance and waste of time. Just give me my 300KB Word doc!
What makes you say that? Even ignoring the extra apps in the windows suite, I've always preferred Office for Windows to Office for Mac (been using since 2004 version) and was really frustrated when the Mac group dropped Macro support in the 2008 version.
That must be a given. Wouldn't be much use without it, and OneNote for iPhone already syncs with SkyDrive.
Is Microsoft going to change its activation policy, then?
Unless Microsoft makes a radical change in their activation policy, it's hard to believe that Office will be available at the Mac App Store.
The single-user license for Office 2011, for instance, is a) valid for a single computer, and b) has to be newly activated each time there is even a minor hardware update (e.g., a new harddrive) on that selfsame computer.
Yet, online activation is limited to five trials; after that, you have to call customer service, and read out a 36-digit activation code to an automated service.
Sometimes the automated service does not work; it tells you to "call back later", without specifying what the error is. There are no unambiguous instructions anywhere, as to how one may reach a customer service representative that is, you know, a human being. The trick (!) is to remain silent as the automated voice asks for the activation code: Then, you get directed to a real person, who takes care of the activation.
This is worlds away from the Mac App Store policy. It's hard to believe that MS will part with this draconian activation procedure----let alone allow for unlimited installs on all one's Macs at the same price.
Sometimes, new hardware fails: Some early 2011 MBPs had a problem with 3rd party SSDs, for instance, and I had to go through 4 different harddrives in a week, on a new MBP, before the Firmware update that 'tacitly' took care of the SSD problem. That was annoying in itself----add on top of that being treated as a criminal by Microsoft, scrambling for a way to get the software activated. If it weren't for some obscure forum comments somewhere on the web, I wouldn't even know that there is a way to bypass the automated phone service, to talk to a real person who, of course, understands at once what the problem is and redresses it immediately.
Unless Microsoft makes a radical change in their activation policy, it's hard to believe that Office will be available at the Mac App Store.
The single-user license for Office 2011, for instance, is a) valid for a single computer, and b) has to be newly activated each time there is even a minor hardware update (e.g., a new harddrive) on that selfsame computer.
Yet, online activation is limited to five trials; after that, you have to call customer service, and read out a 36-digit activation code to an automated service.
Sometimes the automated service does not work; it tells you to "call back later", without specifying what the error is. There are no unambiguous instructions anywhere, as to how one may reach a customer service representative that is, you know, a human being. The trick (!) is to remain silent as the automated voice asks for the activation code: Then, you get directed to a real person, who takes care of the activation.
This is worlds away from the Mac App Store policy. It's hard to believe that MS will part with this draconian activation procedure----let alone allow for unlimited installs on all one's Macs at the same price.
Sometimes, new hardware fails: Some early 2011 MBPs had a problem with 3rd party SSDs, for instance, and I had to go through 4 different harddrives in a week, on a new MBP, before the Firmware update that 'tacitly' took care of the SSD problem. That was annoying in itself----add on top of that being treated as a criminal by Microsoft, scrambling for a way to get the software activated. If it weren't for some obscure forum comments somewhere on the web, I wouldn't even know that there is a way to bypass the automated phone service, to talk to a real person who, of course, understands at once what the problem is and redresses it immediately.