Microsoft site references Office Mobile for iPhone, Excel & PowerPoint for iPad
Support documents on Microsoft's website contain references to a number of unannounced iOS applications based on the company's Office suite.
References to "Office Mobile for iPhone," "Excel for iPad," and "PowerPoint for iPad" were discovered in official documents published to Microsoft's French website. The references were first discovered by Mac4Ever, while additional evidence was highlighted by MacRumors on Monday.
AppleInsider was also first to report earlier this yearlast month with a report that claimed the software will be arriving on the App Store in early 2013. Office for iPhone and iPad is expected to offer free document viewing, while editing of files will require a paid subscription.
Mentions of a version of Office for iOS have come previously from Microsoft itself, including a Czech Republic product manager who said the software will arrive as soon as March of 2013. A spokesperson for Microsoft later declined to give a specific date, but did say its Office suite will "work across Windows Phone, iOS and Android."
In May, AppleInsider was also first to report that Microsoft is working on a new native iOS application for Outlook Web App, called "OWA Mobile Client for iOS," that will offer compatibility with Exchange 2012 mailboxes. It too is expected to feature Microsoft's Metro interface.
References to "Office Mobile for iPhone," "Excel for iPad," and "PowerPoint for iPad" were discovered in official documents published to Microsoft's French website. The references were first discovered by Mac4Ever, while additional evidence was highlighted by MacRumors on Monday.
AppleInsider was also first to report earlier this yearlast month with a report that claimed the software will be arriving on the App Store in early 2013. Office for iPhone and iPad is expected to offer free document viewing, while editing of files will require a paid subscription.
Mentions of a version of Office for iOS have come previously from Microsoft itself, including a Czech Republic product manager who said the software will arrive as soon as March of 2013. A spokesperson for Microsoft later declined to give a specific date, but did say its Office suite will "work across Windows Phone, iOS and Android."
In May, AppleInsider was also first to report that Microsoft is working on a new native iOS application for Outlook Web App, called "OWA Mobile Client for iOS," that will offer compatibility with Exchange 2012 mailboxes. It too is expected to feature Microsoft's Metro interface.
Comments
Microsoft will still be denying the existence of Office for iOS a month after they launch it.
Nice! Hope this happens - would love to have Office on my iPad.
Can't wait to see the power of Office in my iPhone 4s.
Note the completely non-standard dialogues that appear to violate terms of the app store. This whole "Office for iOS" project is still looking far more like "Office 360 subscription for iOS" than actual apps.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Microsoft will still be denying the existence of Office for iOS a month after they launch it.
I was just gonna say...They'll remove the references and say no, were not making iOS apps. We've only leaked it many times and denied it every time.
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Originally Posted by Freshmaker
Nice! Hope this happens - would love to have Office on my iPad.
This.
Really.
Microsoft Business Division (Office) is the largest profit maker in Redmond, and has to continue to grow it's revenues to keep the value of the company up. If the iPad is the growing market share for 'mobile creation' (replacing windows laptops), I can't see this division losing an argument to deploy an iOS suite of apps to drive eyeballs to Office365.com. Doubly so if Win8 and Surface fail miserably.
This is a political bomb inside the Corporate offices. People buy Windows... to run Word. If people don't have to buy windows, they won't. If they don't buy windows, the Microsoft Server Server Division (IIS, SQL, etc.) as well as Windows, die a miserable death, which is about 60% of their profits. But, is maintaining Office as a cash cow on all platforms better than hitching your wagon to the crash landing called Win8 and never being able to recover?
Ballmer (more likely, his successor) will have a hard decision to make in about 9 months.
Somehow Microsoft feels like they have some sort of brand loyalty and that people flock to their products. They have certainly acted this way toward Windows Phone and now Windows 8. Slap a Windows name on it and they will come. Reality is that people use Windows and Office, but they don't really love this products. Either is was a standard they had to comply with or someone else made the purchasing decision for them.
People who chose OS X / iOS over Windows have been met with truly inferior MS products. On the Mac side Office is a hog, and the Outlook product is terrible. Get use to hanging and spinning beach balls.
This bring me to the iPhone which has been graced with a Microsoft Lync client. A buggy, unusable, confusing piece of junk. Go checkout the reviews. If this is anything like what we can expect from Office on iOS, then go and buy the iWork apps now and move on.
Microsoft has been trying to protect its Windows monopoly, but in those efforts they are risking the Office monopoly. I bet in 5 years they have neither.
It's time for Apple to release a grown-up version of iWork, and put a stop to this mandatory bloatware, once and for all. Seeing competition restored in the productivity app marketplace is a consummation devoutly to be wished.
It won't get rejected for having an non-standard UI. There's plenty of apps on the app store that don't conform to Apple's HIG.
If only apps using standard controls got accepted, the app store would be a very dull place. Many Apple award winners shown off at WWDC in the past have used non-standard controls.
Yep, me too!
If nothing else, Apple will probably step up their game and release a big cross-platform iWork update upon the introduction of iOS Office, simply to make Microsoft's pathetic entrance therein look even more so.
Hey, it happened with the iPad and the Surface wasn't ever going to be a contender even with the 3rd gen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bedouin
Metro interface? Yeah, I'll stick with iWork.
Sounds so like:
Heineken? ... Pabst Blue Ribbon!
Now: What's the movie?
As others have said, I use Office all day long, and loathe every minute.
^^^ This
Quote:
Originally Posted by va_plinker
Somehow Microsoft feels like they have some sort of brand loyalty and that people flock to their products. They have certainly acted this way toward Windows Phone and now Windows 8. Slap a Windows name on it and they will come. Reality is that people use Windows and Office, but they don't really love this products. Either is was a standard they had to comply with or someone else made the purchasing decision for them.
People who chose OS X / iOS over Windows have been met with truly inferior MS products. On the Mac side Office is a hog, and the Outlook product is terrible. Get use to hanging and spinning beach balls.
This bring me to the iPhone which has been graced with a Microsoft Lync client. A buggy, unusable, confusing piece of junk. Go checkout the reviews. If this is anything like what we can expect from Office on iOS, then go and buy the iWork apps now and move on.
Microsoft has been trying to protect its Windows monopoly, but in those efforts they are risking the Office monopoly. I bet in 5 years they have neither.
Microsoft Office has been completely absent from the college and enterprise tablet/phone market for YEARS. And you know what? Everyone has gotten along all right with iWork year after year. Sure it doesn't do everything Office can do, but in its simplicity it does most of what it needs to do and does it elegantly.
Microsoft Office was designed to be used with a keyboard, a mouse, and a large screen so its complexity fit the UI. Office has its place in a tablet world, just as the world needs trucks and cars. What Microsoft has done with Office on a Surface tablet is still short of the previous version of Office and harder to do that iWork.
I think MS has already lost their dominance in many market areas with Office and it will just be a while before it becomes wholly apparent... Buyers are not even waiting for MS to get it right... It's over and the fat lady didn't even get to sing.
When the original iPad was released in 2010, I felt that it was key [to Apple and Microsoft] that office for was released for the iPad.
I was wrong!
The world has moved on... Office is not viable or necessary on the iPad!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Banyan Bruce
Almost past caring on this rumour. We're already encouraging our students to produce their documents in Pages and save them as pdf for marking or save them as Word document s if they have to be used on their home PCs or network. Numbers is rather light. But with a little drop of Apple's vast cash mountain invested in a decent "Office" suite they could be frying MS. Especially if they released it to run on Android as well.
I was going along with you until that last sentence. Apple would do well to make a Windows version, but they need to freeze out Android. This is how Apple can sideline Android and still lower resistance to Apple device integration into the larger (but shrinking) Windows world.
As a long term Apple advocate I've been pleasantly surprised at how difficult it has become for the Windows users in a large marketing company I'm involved with. The computer of choice is the iPad and the phone of choice is the iPhone. All interactions revolve around the unique integration of these portable devices with Macs fitting in better than PCs.