Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft's Office Team Steps Onto iOS With 'OneNote'
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Evernote, Google Docs, OpenOffice, iWork.
What's this Office that you speak of? Oh, you mean that bloated, overpriced thing from Microsoft?
No, I mean the office suite that both actually works and which is required if you actually need to compatibly deal with mission critical office documents produced by others who aren't too cheap or idealistic to use Office.
This may come as a shock to you but not every Office user is an enterprise level accountant with needs for massive amounts of data.
I used office on my Windows Mobile phone almost daily, mostly Excel and One Note, sometimes Word. My WinMo phone was a small stylus screen phone, but I used excel to fill in a mileage ledger for my expense account, and OneNote to go over notes from my classes when I had a little down time, but wasn't at a computer (for example, in the waiting room when I got new tires, or when I was stuck behind a major fatal accident and was told there was nowhere I could go, one direction or the other, for at least an hour.)
It would be ever better on the larger, more touch-friendly, brighter and higher resolution devices.
Additionally, I compose documents using Pages all the time on my iPad, using a wireless keyboard of course (but don't you have a keyboard on your notebook, or one attached to your desktop? Seems reasonable), recently I was assigned a paper, I have an hour after that class before the next, guess what, I got 3 pages of it done on my iPad. Felt the same as if I had taken my laptop to class and used it. This wasn't a research paper, no that would be difficult on an iPad (not impossible, but more time consuming switching between apps), but still, it has it's uses.
Finally you said that EVERYBODY who tried to replace a PC with an iPad has failed, someone on this forum has a blog where he does just that. I myself have all but abandoned my laptop. Granted, I still use my desktop, but for crying out loud, just because you have a car doesn't mean you can't walk down the hall! Why does everyone think that for the iPad to be a useful piece of hardware it HAS to COMPLETELY replace every other device you own? It is an awesome portable web browsing and eBooks experience, and still does a great job for taking notes in class, and performing other tasks that my laptop previously did.
I think Office on the iPad will be a positive thing, although I sincerely hope other offerings are better than One Note (that is, more like their desktop counterpart, less like a crappy app carrying a brand name when it actually doesn't represent the brand that people expect.) It obviously isn't something you would buy but that doesn't mean you have to bash it. Not to mention, had you actually used an iPad, you would know that Office viewers would be redundant, because there are TONS of Apps (many of them free) that can natively view office formats (even XML formats like .docx, .xlsx, etc.), it IS content creation that Office users want.
In fact, Dropbox, which is free, can view everything I've thrown at it so far, from Word Documents to Excel Spreadsheets and powerpoint presentations. It has a nasty habit of messing up certain Word documents that are formatted oddly (like with columns), but it's a minor problem especially when Pages can view them just fine.
What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? The EU might have passed that ruling but that has nothing to do with the opinions of other individuals on dock connectors. That has to do with companies like Samsung who have changed their proprietary charging port 4 times in the past few years, it's the same wiring scheme and even looks the same, but changes in some minute amount so that previous accessories no longer work (or 'fit) rather, you can cut the tip off and rewire it with a new connector and a 5 year old Samsung charger will work on a brand new device). The dock connector hasn't changed in 10 years.
I'm sure Apple WILL change it to mini-USB, at least for the EU, with no problem. After all, they don't make any of the dock connector accessories (except for the dock, ironically, but that can be changed to mini USB very easily) Apple did it so that it's customers can continue to use accessories they already own.
-John
Last edited:
China will receive more business in making the USB adapters, thus putting more money into the hands of the average Chinese worker, thus pushing the price of rice up.
I don't think Apple will make a USB port, they will just ship the iPad/iPhone with a port adapter.
Well, Apple has agreed to the European mandate for a universal phone charger connector. It seems unlikely that Apple would produce a European iPhone and an everywhere-else iPhone.
I did read that Apple can fulfill the mandate by including an adapter for the new mini-USB connection that is now standard.
Time will tell. Not sure when the European mandate goes into effect.
EDIT: I'd delete this if I could as others have already contributed better... Sorry folks!
P.s.- Pretty nice debate happening here. Glad everyone is keeping their cool.
Last edited:
That's an excellent point, what I was trying to do was defend it against everyone calling the point oversized and antiquated, it hasn't yet forced Apple to change the design of a device (Mini USB is just as thick so it's not like it could get thinner), so it just seems silly (EXCEPT for the EU issue), to change what already works well.
Politically, I think the EU mandate on mini-USB is just plain silly. First off, bureaucracy is way too slow, so when USB gets replaced with faster technologies to the point where it won't work with a mini-USB port, it will take years to be updated, so devices will either have TWO ports, or not be able to take advantage of new technologies. Secondly, it should be up to the stinking manufacturer, I mean certain things are safety related, like minimum wire gauges for certain types of wiring in the US, or some states / counties requiring 3-prong grounded outlets (because of the fires and damage caused by those adapters), but mini-usb? No, I understand why they are doing it, I really do, maybe I'm just too capitalistic, but it just seems like it should be up to the consumer to make that decision, not the government, but anyway.
I do agree though, conceptually I don't think Apple will produce a EU only iPhone, but then, do they change the iPod? Do they change all of the other devices, rendering thousands of currently-produced docking stations useless to owners of new devices? Someone mentioned an adapter, maybe someone can enlighten me, but if the EU was going to mandate mini-USB ports, wouldn't an adapter NOT be ok? After all, it ALREADY INCLUDES a USB cable, thus making a mini-usb adapter redundant, right? Is there an official decision on this?
You know what I think we're going to see before too long, is USB ports in our walls. I was in my kitchen a few minutes ago, and there were THREE AC to USB adapters (one for an iPod touch, two for samsung cellphones), here in the bedroom there are 3 plugged in (iPhone + iPad + Bluetooth Headset), in every room of this house, almost, I would bet there is a USB cord plugged into something thats plugged into the wall. ALOT of the manufacturers are doing what apple does now, ship a USB cable, and a brick. If the trend continues, I bet gadget wielding folks could install outlets with a USB port in them somewhere, now how cool would that be?
-John
Umm...you mean like this that's already for sale? (not sure what any of this has to do with OneNote though!)
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/17/fastmac-u-socket-now-shipping-out-to-the-world-making-it-a-bett/
Attachments
I wanted to love this app, but I'm sticking with Evernote. Does the same thing, plus the desktop apps works much better. I don't use Windows anymore, but when I did, OneNote was the one app I loved. Too bad, I can't move notes from one notebook to another.
Too bad this isn't universal with the iPad. Too bad I can't create additional notebooks on the device itself (you can't with Evernote either, but this should be a no brainer). I love the layout, I love how my pictures I headline my notes with automatically get resized to the proper size for the phone (unlike Evernote, where you can't resize the photos so my big, hi res photos are too large for the screen and take up too much space). The image re-sizing is my only gripe with Evernote.
Actually there's another and that involves collapsing the notebooks (Evernote likes to list all my notes so that I have to scroll through a ton of them to find the one I want to work with). Why can't I email my OneNote notes?
I love OneNotes collapsing notes (doesn't really collapse but the layout is much neater). The notes should scale according to the device being used with Evernote. But that's just me. Evernote > OneNote.
Too bad this isn't universal with the iPad. Too bad I can't create additional notebooks on the device itself (you can't with Evernote either, but this should be a no brainer). I love the layout, I love how my pictures I headline my notes with automatically get resized to the proper size for the phone (unlike Evernote, where you can't resize the photos so my big, hi res photos are too large for the screen and take up too much space). The image re-sizing is my only gripe with Evernote.
Actually there's another and that involves collapsing the notebooks (Evernote likes to list all my notes so that I have to scroll through a ton of them to find the one I want to work with). Why can't I email my OneNote notes?
I love OneNotes collapsing notes (doesn't really collapse but the layout is much neater). The notes should scale according to the device being used with Evernote. But that's just me. Evernote > OneNote.
Last edited:
Tabs
I used to use Evernote, but I switched to OneNote because of the hierarchy of tabs. I am writing a type of encyclopedia of the imagination, so I really need that kind of organization. Honestly, OneNote's tab feature was worth paying for in my case.
I used to use Evernote, but I switched to OneNote because of the hierarchy of tabs. I am writing a type of encyclopedia of the imagination, so I really need that kind of organization. Honestly, OneNote's tab feature was worth paying for in my case.
Attachments
Well there is a difference between product available for sale, and widespread adoption. But yeah, that's what I'm talking about
I work in a "Microsoft shop" and OneNote is a signature Office application around here, maybe just after Excel/Sharepoint.
It's just one guy's opinion, but I consider it a very good start; Retina Display compatible or not.
I'd love to see an OSX version in the new App Store....
You and a lot of other Mac Users. Seems like MS pushed out an update recently also to fix the "400" error people were getting.