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I think they need to be working on their own OS before developing for better ones. And I really don't get the need for Office/iWork on the iPhone. If I am going to be any doing any word processing, powerpoints, whatever... it's sure as hell not going to be on a phone. I'll leave that up to my pc. I just don't see a market here.
 
Has anyone here ever used an um...what are they called again..oh yeah a PDA!!

Jeez, my HP PDA from way back in 2001 had a word editor on it which I could open up word docs with...what is it now, 2009...how much more advanced is hardware? A TRUCK LOAD.

Was word bloated back then? Yes...was the mobile version? No. Will it need to be now? No. Why does everyone get on M$'s back straight away, yeesh. A basic editor will be more than handy, and save people carrying a laptop for some small typos, and using the device as yet another document backup device will be more than handy.

The iPhone isn't some fragile piece of porcelain, it's a super advanced piece of hardware and supposedly the "BEST" phone out there...why do people treat it like a 486 with 256k ram..just because it can only run one app at a time, doesn't mean that the app has to be limited also.
 
I assume this means viewers or simple editors. I doubt anybody who want to do serious Office work on their iPhones. That said, Mail can already view PDFs and .doc (and I think .xls?) so ... I'm a bit lost here. Can someone explain the significance of this? Is it just Microsoft showing additional iPhone interest?
I had some pocket version of Office on a Compaq iPaq handheld Windows CE machine many years ago (2001 or thereabouts). Excel and Word documents were fully editable and it was surprisingly usable actually. Seeing as the iPhone has similar screen res to the old iPaq I don't see why they couldn't bring a fully functional Pocket Office to the iPhone rather than a simple viewer.
 
... I agree with your reasoning, but it's Apple, so you never know. :eek:

They may be hoping to create their own iWorks app for the iPhone and sell it for more money than most other apps at the App store, say $30, and Microsoft's introduction of Office on the iPhone may cut into that profit considerably. I know that if I had a choice, I'd choose Office. Why would I need Pages on my iPhone? Or Numbers? ;) MS Word on the iPhone is the killer app, not anything else offered by MS's Office suite, or iWorks.
No offence dude, but you're talking crazy talk here.

In the first place, when has Apple ever engaged in the kind of software pricing shenanigans you are accusing them of here? Never, that's when. Secondly, which of the two companies has the ridiculously overpriced Office suite? Microsoft, that's who.

Pages and Numbers knock MS Office to the floor in terms of quality and use for the most part and while "advanced" :rolleyes: business users may need some of the features in Office that iWorks doesn't have yet, in a mobile product that deals only with feature sub-sets, that point is moot.

A Pages app for the iPhone that opened and edited Word documents would be far more popular than Word on the iPhone. Guaranteed.
 
I'll wait for iLife/iWork

I'd rather wait for iLife and iWork than Microsoft Office. I can already view .docs on my iphone. I certainly wouldn't want to edit a doc on an iphone and I can't print the silly doc, so I'm not sure what use cases they are working with.
 
I hate to be a party crasher, but... I'm against this. If Microsoft does make an iPhone version of Office I will stay away. My reasons are simple: Office on Mac OS (and on Windows) is bloated with features that most people never use, and it's extremely buggy as well.

It is utterly surprising how lethargic Word '08 opens and operates, even on a fast machine. I often save Word files to PDF before reading them, so that I can scroll pages without massive slowdowns due to font optimization, etc. I'll be greatly looking forward to a Cocoa version of Word for both the Mac and iPhone, circa 2021.

I'd rather wait for iLife and iWork than Microsoft Office. I can already view .docs on my iphone. I certainly wouldn't want to edit a doc on an iphone and I can't print the silly doc, so I'm not sure what use cases they are working with.

Quite true - being able to view a document without having to open an application is ideal. Editing a document via a lethargic app such as Word would seem to be quite cumbersome and counter productive.
 
Finally, for M$

Now, they can all justify themselves getting iPhones. :p

Billy can finally make his wifey and kids happy now by getting them iPhones too. The moment they've all been waiting for... :D

You know Ballmer wants one too ;)

-S
 
I dont have an iPhone so I don't know much about it's abilities; but doesn't the 3.0 OS have some sort of support for 3rd party hardware? meaning, couldn't it conceivably print off documents from a blue tooth or wireless printer given the right app?
 
I don't see why they couldn't bring a fully functional Pocket Office to the iPhone rather than a simple viewer.

Don't you? Here's one: the sandbox file structure for apps.

You can't edit documents from your email. You can't edit documents from your file sharing apps. You have to sync photos through iTunes, files through your file storage app (or WiFi), and documents through your Pocket Office app. Furthermore, apps usually require an associated desktop sync client to sync to your iPhone while that particular app is running.

You can't attach documents to an email in the mail app. You have to mail photos from the photo app, documents from the Pocket Office app, files from your file sharing app; you can't mail attachments from other emails at all. Instead of Apple having one app (mail) that can attach files from other apps, every individual app must include email support itself.

The only work-around would be to have an all-in-one app, i.e. a Pocket Office app that includes both a mail and file storage app - which is just absurd.

I'll post an example in a bit with some mock-ups

I certainly wouldn't want to edit a doc on an iphone and I can't print the silly doc, so I'm not sure what use cases they are working with.

What is so bad about being able to fix a typo, or edit line spacing, or a date, or a formula, or a...

Have you ever heard of a "networked printer"? It's this wonderful thing where a device connected to a network (hint: through WiFi) can print to any printer on that network. They even have WiFi printers now. Imagine: getting an email with attachment and printing it right from your iPhone instead of going to your desktop, logging into your email, downloading, opening, and printing it.

Of course, while there is no technical reason you can't print from the iPhone, obviously we don't have that capability yet.
 
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 2_2_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/525.18.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.1 Mobile/5H11 Safari/525.20)

This would be interesting. I bet it won't make it through Apple though. iWork will be coming soon.
 
Entourage to iCal sync first maybe???

Yeah this sounds great and I am sure I will be using it if and when released, but surely they should be looking at working with Apple in getting Entourage to sync to iCal and then onto iPhone correctly first? :mad:
 
Have you ever heard of a "networked printer"? It's this wonderful thing where a device connected to a network (hint: through WiFi) can print to any printer on that network. They even have WiFi printers now. Imagine: getting an email with attachment and printing it right from your iPhone instead of going to your desktop, logging into your email, downloading, opening, and printing it.

Of course, while there is no technical reason you can't print from the iPhone, obviously we don't have that capability yet.

that clarified some stuff.

ok, my unfounded judgement:

MS Office for iPhone? ...meh

iWork? even better
 
I'd rather wait for iLife and iWork than Microsoft Office. I can already view .docs on my iphone. I certainly wouldn't want to edit a doc on an iphone and I can't print the silly doc, so I'm not sure what use cases they are working with.

Microsoft Office is the real deal. Perhaps, it is not the best in mac. There is not better program than Excell, for example. When you are a professional or are writing a doctoral dissertation most of the other suites are just toys. An office suite for the iphone is going to be a lot simpler, but it has to communicate very well with Microsoft Office. Otherwise, it will be useless. I think an office suite is one of the most important apps that is missing to the iphone.
 
Microsoft Office is the real deal. Perhaps, it is not the best in mac. There is not better program than Excell, for example. When you are a professional or are writing a doctoral dissertation most of the other suites are just toys. An office suite for the iphone is going to be a lot simpler, but it has to communicate very well with Microsoft Office. Otherwise, it will be useless. I think an office suite is one of the most important apps that is missing to the iphone.

haha ...writing a dissertation on a phone?

I see your point about excell though (engineer)
 
Just allow computerless PowerPoint presentations using NATIVE PowerPoint files created on the Mac and that will rock! The iPhone and iPod touch become the ultimate presentation remote. Like this:

Impatica ShowMate
http://www.impatica.com/showmate

1. Make the presentation on the Mac.
2. Move the NATIVE file to the iPhone or iPod touch.
3. Use only the iPhone or iPod touch for full blown PowerPoint presentations (no conversion required) with transitions, animations, etc.
 
Why? Surely Microsoft is just killing its own sales by improving the business side of the iPhone.

MS makes $350 million/year through Mactopia. They would benefit greatly from porting Office to the iPhone, especially since they do not yet sport a Zune phone.
 
haha ...writing a dissertation on a phone?

I see your point about excell though (engineer)

I never said the dissertation would be written on an iphone. I meant that you will problably need microsoft office if you write a dissertation. The iphone app would be a lot simpler and could help for typos and stuff like that. Of, course you need that real program, but an iphone app can help.:cool:
 
Office Suites

I would like to see Office or iWorks for the phone. I wouldn't use it alot, but it would be convenient for various email attachments that I get at times.

Both Quickoffice and Dataviz will be releasing their respective office suites for the iPhone (perhaps in stages), so this void will be filled soon enough.

Based on Quickoffice's press release below, their office suite (Word and Excel, plus file management) will be available shortly for $20, at least initially. IMHO that's not too bad of a start.

http://www.quickoffice.com/news/quickoffice-press-releases/2009-press-releases/press-release-april-1-2009/

Yes, they just screwed their existing customers by re-badging MobileFiles Pro (made to appear like a general file storage/reading/editing) to Quicksheet (which can only edit Excel files).

I've used Quickoffice's apps before and after their name changes (admittedly quite confusing), and there's been no deletion of features. Quicksheet handles both Excel editing and file management, just like its predecessor.

Their website is helpful in clarifying what each app does. :)
 
Both Quickoffice and Dataviz will be releasing their respective office suites for the iPhone, so this void will be filled soon enough.

Based on Quickoffice's press release below, their office suite (Word and Excel, plus file management) will be available shortly for $20, at least initially. IMHO that's not too bad of a start.

http://www.quickoffice.com/news/quickoffice-press-releases/2009-press-releases/press-release-april-1-2009/



I've used Quickoffice's apps before and after their name changes (admittedly quite confusing), and there's been no deletion of features. Quicksheet handles both Excel editing and file management, just like its predecessor. Their website helps to clear up some of the confusion. :)

Thanks for the news! It says it will support doc (office 2003) files. I guess docx (office 2007) will come later.
 
Don't you? Here's one: the sandbox file structure for apps.
All I said was that MS had Office working on a similar sized screen almost 10 years ago. Since the iPhone can run circles around an antiquated iPaq, the resources are there as far as the hardware goes. As for restrictions and limitations for third party developers, I'm sure there's a ton of those but Microsoft has a little more leverage than someone who makes a pull-my-finger app.
 
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