First look: Hands on with Office for iPad from Microsoft's event in San Francisco

Posted:
in iPad edited April 2014
The long-awaited debut of Microsoft Office for iPad finally took place on Thursday with an event in San Francisco featuring the company's new chief executive Satya Nadella. AppleInsider was there live to test out Office on the iPad, and also see Microsoft's new leader in action.




The new Office for iPad looks very much like Apple's iWork, and the features demonstrated by Microsoft on Thursday were also similar. The newly released Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPad are actually the first touch-enabled versions of Office, as the existing applications for Windows and Surface are still using what is essentially a desktop PC interface, while Windows Phone sports a very different editor.
Office for iPad brings a true touchscreen interface to Microsoft's productivity suite. The interface is much better than Office for Mac, but is still distinctly Microsoft.
Apple's entirely new interface on Office for iPad seems much better than Office for Mac, which frankly we haven't been impressed by in some time. Office for iPad looks usable and fluid, and likely works with more document types than its Mac counterpart as well.

In our hands-on time, we came away feeling that Office works like an iPad application, though the complex interfaces are distinctly Microsoft.

We spoke with Microsoft Office general manager Julia White, and asked about support for previous version of Office, and how much fidelity users can expect between the Windows and iOS versions of the suite. She said there has been no changes to the file types in Office since ".docx" debuted, and that everything is supported aside from possibly macros.

We were given the impression that Office for iPad is a major effort for Microsoft, and find it interesting that the company is giving the downloads away for free. This is likely because they know they can't sell the applications themselves while Apple is including iWork for free with all new iOS device purchases.




Still, editing documents on Office for iPad will require users to subscribe to Microsoft's Office 365 service, which costs $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for a home account, and can be used on up to five PCs and Macs, as well as tablets and smartphones. Both personal and corporate accounts can be used, and allow access to OneDrive and Sharepoint, while files can also be shared via standard methods such as email.

One thing we did notice is that Office for iPad does not offer the ability to rotate with multi-touch. Instead, that function works like Office on the desktop, requiring users to select an image and touch the rotation button. While somewhat strange, this may actually be a benefit for some, as people may accidentally touch and rotate items while editing a document.

But many aspects of Microsoft's presentation on Thursday felt similar to how Apple showcased iWork on iPad four years ago, in 2010. For example, the company showed how Word on iPad allows users to move images around freely, and text will automatically flow around the picture. That's exactly how Apple showed off Pages on iPad.

The Excel presentation also emphasized a custom keyboard for character entry -- something Apple focused on in showcasing Numbers. And in unveiling PowerPoint for iPad, Microsoft showcased its animated transitions much like Apple has already done.

Still, enterprise users who rely heavily on Excel will be pleased with its arrival on iPad, as Microsoft's spreadsheet application simply has more capabilities than Apple's Numbers. In addition, there are some functions possible in Excel that simply don't translate over to Numbers.




Excel for iPad boasts many more functions available to users than Apple's Numbers. However, it doesn't appear that all desktop-class capabilities have been brought over to the touchscreen interface.

In taking the stage, Nadella emphasized that he's been with Microsoft for most of his adult life, though the role of CEO is obviously new. He said the release of Office on Apple's market leading iPad isn't about competing with other companies, as Microsoft is simply focused on going to where the customers are.

The 45-minute presentation did seem rushed, with very little time being spent on an application before moving on to something else. With its annual Build developer conference next week, it's likely that Microsoft didn't want to draw too much focus away from Nadella's next presentation.

Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iPad were all released on Apple's App Store earlier Thursday as free downloads.



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    Comments

    • Reply 1 of 67
      rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
      Geez AI how many different articles do you need to have for this?
    • Reply 2 of 67
      lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
      Maybe now the dev team can get some work done on Office for Mac OS X - I do a lot of work in Excel with lots of custom macros and often multiple docs open and it often gets quite slow and even crashes - and has many little quirks beside the differences in the way pages are rendered between the platforms.
    • Reply 3 of 67
      philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
      A link to the presentation would be great AI.
    • Reply 4 of 67
      bcodebcode Posts: 141member
      "...and find it interesting that the company is giving the downloads away for free. This is likely because they know they can't sell the applications themselves while Apple is including iWork for free with all new iOS device purchases"

      No. It's the only way to avoid giving Apple 30% of their cut.
    • Reply 5 of 67
      philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
      rogifan wrote: »
      Geez AI how many different articles do you need to have for this?

      This is #4, but it's just a 'hands-on' article. Expect an 'in-depth review' this weekend.

      I think they fucked up with the picture rotation; they clearly use a mouse with their tablet, and clearly haven't used the app after compiling it.
    • Reply 6 of 67
      solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
      philboogie wrote: »
      This is #4, but it's just a 'hands-on' article. Expect an 'in-depth review' this weekend.

      I think they fucked up with the picture rotation; they clearly use a mouse with their tablet, and clearly haven't used the app after compiling it.

      First comes the on-depth overview then comes the in-depth review and finally the depth-adjacent review which gets feedback on your thoughts of the depthiness of their reviews.
    • Reply 7 of 67
      paulmjohnsonpaulmjohnson Posts: 1,380member
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by lilgto64 View Post



      Maybe now the dev team can get some work done on Office for Mac OS X - I do a lot of work in Excel with lots of custom macros and often multiple docs open and it often gets quite slow and even crashes - and has many little quirks beside the differences in the way pages are rendered between the platforms.

       

      I hear you.

       

      Excel for Mac seems to only make use of one core on my eight core machine.  For some of the bigger spreadsheets I use, I actually find it more efficient to bring up Parallels and run Excel for Windows, which seems ridiculous.

    • Reply 8 of 67
      philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
      solipsismx wrote: »
      First comes the on-depth overview then comes the in-depth review and finally the depth-adjacent review which gets feedback on your thoughts of the depthiness of their reviews.

      "Geez man, that deep."
    • Reply 9 of 67
      wardcwardc Posts: 150member
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by bcode View Post



      "...and find it interesting that the company is giving the downloads away for free. This is likely because they know they can't sell the applications themselves while Apple is including iWork for free with all new iOS device purchases"



      No. It's the only way to avoid giving Apple 30% of their cut.

      NO, They are not "giving" the full-functioning App away....if you want to *CREATE* any document with the program, you have to subscribe to their $99/year service, which will probably keep re-billing you until you cancel. Thing is a total rip-off. It's not free.

    • Reply 10 of 67
      hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member

      Too little, too late.

    • Reply 11 of 67
      lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post

       

       

      I hear you.

       

      Excel for Mac seems to only make use of one core on my eight core machine.  For some of the bigger spreadsheets I use, I actually find it more efficient to bring up Parallels and run Excel for Windows, which seems ridiculous.


       

      I do run Parallels on my home system and Fusion on my work machine - and the dev work that I do has to work on both Mac and Windows. Some operations that I script take far longer to execute on the Mac side than Windows - had never looked to see how many cores were being pushed. Overall, aside from the lack of Active X on the Mac, and the differences in the way fonts and text boxes render - the current versions are more similar than any previous versions. Better performance on the Mac side would be welcome. 

    • Reply 12 of 67
      rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
      From what I can tell these apps offer IAP. So I'm assuming Apple gets a cut of any IAP? I figured MS would do anything possible to avoid giving Apple a cut. Unless some special deal has been worked out where Apple doesn't get a cut?
    • Reply 13 of 67
      wardcwardc Posts: 150member

      I will tell you, I would pay a reasonable amount, say $49.99 to buy and own the app for the iPad. But no way am I paying $99/year for some subscription service just to run this thing on my iPad. No thank you M$

    • Reply 14 of 67
      paulmjohnsonpaulmjohnson Posts: 1,380member
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by lilgto64 View Post

       

       

      I do run Parallels on my home system and Fusion on my work machine - and the dev work that I do has to work on both Mac and Windows. Some operations that I script take far longer to execute on the Mac side than Windows - had never looked to see how many cores were being pushed. Overall, aside from the lack of Active X on the Mac, and the differences in the way fonts and text boxes render - the current versions are more similar than any previous versions. Better performance on the Mac side would be welcome. 


       

      How do you find Fusion in comparison with Parallels?

    • Reply 15 of 67
      hawksehawkse Posts: 28member
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post

      Excel for Mac seems to only make use of one core on my eight core machine.  For some of the bigger spreadsheets I use, I actually find it more efficient to bring up Parallels and run Excel for Windows, which seems ridiculous.


      Well, that's exactly like Excel 2010 on my Windows 7 machine at work. Four cores, only one being used - for *all* spreadsheets I have open and they are frequently all being recalculated every time a calculation changes in one of the sheets even if they are not linked in any way.

       

      Minor gripe, though, since Excel is a really powerful albeit with many weird quirks. One gets used to it.

    • Reply 16 of 67
      "Apple's entirely new interface on Office for iPad seems much better than Office for Mac"

      Psst. Don't you mean Microsoft's new interface? :)
    • Reply 17 of 67
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by bcode View Post



      "...and find it interesting that the company is giving the downloads away for free. This is likely because they know they can't sell the applications themselves while Apple is including iWork for free with all new iOS device purchases"



      No. It's the only way to avoid giving Apple 30% of their cut.

      I think both are right, although the latter is less of an issue if the former was not true. 

       

      The external subscription is the key factor here.   as long as that is the revenue stream, microsoft staunches the revenue hemorrage. 

       

      It's no different than my IRA management app... it's free, but they are taking 1% of my assets under management.   I think it better be free (and a send me a few free tickets to your golf tournament too..)

    • Reply 18 of 67
      I didn't think Microsoft had it in them. I guess I was wrong. Historically, Microsoft released the first GUI version of Word on the Mac, and it ultimately did not hold back the future success of the Windows versions of the same. So there's no reason for MS to hold back the iPad version so that a Metro UI version can arrive first.
    • Reply 19 of 67
      chandra69chandra69 Posts: 638member

      Should every paragraph end with

      "... this is how Apple showed their iWork.", "... this is exactly like Apple."

       

      Come on!

      No one beats Microsoft in Office suite, to be frank!  They just dont have better OS and Hardware!

    • Reply 20 of 67
      lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
      Quote:

      Originally Posted by PaulMJohnson View Post

       

       

      How do you find Fusion in comparison with Parallels?


       

      I prefer Parallels - seems to work a bit better especially for graphics - although I am using the latest version of Parallels compared to version 4 on my work machine - not sure if I want to pay for the upgrade myself or try to convince the company to cover it. For work I have a couple apps that are windows only so have to use it - for home I do a lot more in the VM so the extra power helps, even though it is marginal. 

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