Microsoft beta build of Apple Silicon-compatible Office for Mac imminent

AppleInsider

Microsoft plans to push an Apple Silicon-compatible Universal build of Office for Mac to its beta channel by the end of Wednesday.

Credit: Apple

Erik Schwiebert, the Principal Software Engineer for Apple products at Microsoft's Office division made the announcement on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon. Apple began accepting Universal app submissions on Tuesday.

Schwiebert said there's no official word on a public release date or Universal Office version for final release. Instead, the beta issuance is simply an "initial peek for customers to test on hardware they may be acquiring this week."

MSFT plans to push a Universal build of Mac Office 2019 to the Beta Channel (formerly "Insider Fast") by the end of today.

We don't have a public date or version for a final release; this is an initial peek for customers to test on hardware they may be acquiring this week...

-- Erik Schwiebert (@Schwieb)

November 11, 2020

Apple on Tuesday announced new MacBook Air, 13-inch Macbook Pro, and Mac mini models equipped with an M1 chipset, its first piece of Apple Silicon. All three devices are available to pre-order and will start shipping the week of Nov. 16.

Earlier in November, Microsoft issued a beta build of Excel that introduced Apple Silicon support for SQL Server connectivity settings.

melgross

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

xed

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

What were your expectations v what Apple said? I haven't looked into the exact wording, but based on your post I think using Office for Mac via Rosetta 2 as well as the option for installing a universal build that is available before the release of the M1 Macs is keeping any general word about Office for Mac being available for ARM-based Macs.

thinkmanduv

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

But, I noticed that Microsoft wasn't mentioned during the M1 event. What was interesting is that Microsoft and Adobe (who was mentioned) were having a combined session at the same date and time as the Apple event yesterday. So, I hardly think this announcement should be a disappointment given only Lightroom will be available soon on the M1 Macs, with Photoshop scheduled for early 2021. Then there's the massive rest of the Adobe Suite that needs to be ported before I can think about the transition. That's fine since I'd likely be waiting for what I hope is a 30" small bezel, no-chin, iPad/Phone "language" designed iMac or iMac Pro. Wishful thinking……are you listening Apple?

cpsro

Maybe Apple or Microsoft will find it in their heart to tell us whether Rosetta 2 will run Office.

bobolicious

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

lkrupp

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

They’re taking about a universal binary version. Are you claiming the current version will not run under Rosetta 2? Isn’t that what Rosetta 2 is for, running Intel coded apps? And you don’t need a universal binary to do that, right?

scartart

lkrupp said:

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

They’re taking about a universal binary version. Are you claiming the current version will not run under Rosetta 2? Isn’t that what Rosetta 2 is for, running Intel coded apps? And you don’t need a universal binary to do that, right?

Apple demonstrated Word, Excel and Powerpoint all running natively on AS in June so I guess it is a little disappointing that you will only be able to get it within the Beta channel at product launch. Hopefully it is a stable version of Office recompiled, rather than including new Beta features as well which don't always work too well.

mr lizard

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

They “clearly stated” no such thing. During the keynote presentation, 1 hour and 31 minutes in, Craig Federighi states:

“I’m happy to say that we have all our own Apple apps including our most demanding pro apps up and running as native now, and they’ll be ready for customers on day one. 

Some of the biggest Mac developers have already gotten started. Microsoft is hard at work on Office for Mac, and we’ve been working with Adobe on Creative Cloud and many of their apps are already up and running great.”

So Apple only claimed that their own apps will be ready for when the new Macs came out. They made no such commitment on behalf of any third party developers, Microsoft included, other than to say that they have been working with them and that they have universal binaries in the works. 

chasm

Whether or not you are a Microsoft Office user (and I'm not), having Office on the Mac is important in a lot of ways that might not include your use case. It looks like Office should be available for the Apple Mac on Day One running via Rosetta 2, and available in a native version shortly thereafter. As Mr Lizard points out, some people have hearing and/or comprehension issues that cause them to be mistaken, but frankly I don't think Apple Macs will be huge sellers in their first weeks beyond the initial rush of people who have been waiting specifically for them (YouTubers, reviewers, and those who can afford to beta first-gen hardware). I think most Mac users are smart enough to know that it will be a while before the major and minor third-party devs will have debugged AS-native versions ready to ship, so an Apple Mac is probably on their calendar for, say, next year rather than this year.

That said, if you are one of the millions upon millions of Mac users who rarely strays from the built-in Apple Macs, or is heavily dependent on Apple's Pro apps, you're golden to make the jump if you wish to/have a need to. Just as with the last transition, most users who work with a wider variety of software should probably wait a while yet.

cloudguy

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

LibreOffice is (slightly) worse than Google Docs. So if you are a Microsoft Office power user, it is not an option really. But what about iWork? That is no Microsoft Office obviously but it has to be better than LibreOffice right? (I really wouldn't know as while I have a MacBook, I use mostly Google, Microsoft and "brew cask" Linux products on it and none of the Apple stuff, not even Safari.) 

wizard69

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

wizard69

scartart said:

lkrupp said:

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

They’re taking about a universal binary version. Are you claiming the current version will not run under Rosetta 2? Isn’t that what Rosetta 2 is for, running Intel coded apps? And you don’t need a universal binary to do that, right?

Apple demonstrated Word, Excel and Powerpoint all running natively on AS in June so I guess it is a little disappointing that you will only be able to get it within the Beta channel at product launch. Hopefully it is a stable version of Office recompiled, rather than including new Beta features as well which don't always work too well.

From MS perspective it makes a lot of sense to sync the version up with the next major release of Office.   It is probably better for users too if that new Office version is not that far away.

xed

wizard69 said:

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

It probably comes down to profit. Apple probably sees that they would not get enough sales of Numbers to warrant the cost of making it as capable as Excel. Is that even possible with the way Excel works in the Enterprise and without a Windows version?

zimmermann

Xed said:

wizard69 said:

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

It probably comes down to profit. Apple probably sees that they would not get enough sales of Numbers to warrant the cost of making it as capable as Excel. Is that even possible with the way Excel works in the Enterprise and without a Windows version?

I don’t get why Apple isn’t working harder to make iWork a suite that is as good as Office and can be used instead. One that seamlessly integrates with Office. I tried to step away from Office a few times bij using iWork, but I communicate with many people working with Office, and you always run into difficulties. When I’m pensioned I might try again. And now that everybody in the corporate world is using Teams my pipe dream looks even further away. 

rayz2016

zimmermann said:

Xed said:

wizard69 said:

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

It probably comes down to profit. Apple probably sees that they would not get enough sales of Numbers to warrant the cost of making it as capable as Excel. Is that even possible with the way Excel works in the Enterprise and without a Windows version?

I don’t get why Apple isn’t working harder to make iWork a suite that is as good as Office and can be used instead. One that seamlessly integrates with Office. I tried to step away from Office a few times bij using iWork, but I communicate with many people working with Office, and you always run into difficulties. When I’m pensioned I might try again. And now that everybody in the corporate world is using Teams my pipe dream looks even further away. 

You've answered your own question.

Apple's suite is more than capable of covering just about everything that most users need in an Office Suite, so it can be used instead. The reason that folk use Office is to make sure their documents are compatible with other Office users. Apple's best bet is to build a suite that is approachable by the majority of their users, rather than chase compatibility which will never be 100%.

bnice

I was expecting at the M1 event to here about the new MS Office too. As coincidently on the same as the M1 event, Microsoft dropped supporting Office 365 on High Sierra (apparently earlier than High Sierra was already unsupported). There also is an update to Mac Office 365 yesterday. I wonder if fixes the issues people have been having with Big Sur?

melgross

Xed said:

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

What were your expectations v what Apple said? I haven't looked into the exact wording, but based on your post I think using Office for Mac via Rosetta 2 as well as the option for installing a universal build that is available before the release of the M1 Macs is keeping any general word about Office for Mac being available for ARM-based Macs.

My expectations were that Office would be out. It was a pretty definitive statement, no doubt agreed to by Microsoft. There’s no way Apple would make such a claim if MSB didn’t agree to them making it. Microsoft dropped the ball here, unless Monday, they will announce it. But it would be strange.

an emulated version is NOT what was said. A native version was what was said.

‘’people need to watch Apple’s presentations, and to watch them carefully. This is the same situation I’m coming across regarding Apple’s SoC. Too many writers and posters claiming that Apple would use an A14x chip in thevnewcMacs, when Apple was quite clear that it wouldn’t happen. Now we know these dodos were wrong. This is a disappointment.

edited November 2020

melgross

Xed said:

wizard69 said:

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

It probably comes down to profit. Apple probably sees that they would not get enough sales of Numbers to warrant the cost of making it as capable as Excel. Is that even possible with the way Excel works in the Enterprise and without a Windows version?

I think the problem has been political. If Apple made major improvements to iWork allowing it to compete more directly, then Microsoft might decide to scale back Office not only for the Mac, but for iOS as well, where they have been pretty aggressive. Apple isn’t willing to take that risk.

crowley

Rayz2016 said:

zimmermann said:

Xed said:

wizard69 said:

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

It probably comes down to profit. Apple probably sees that they would not get enough sales of Numbers to warrant the cost of making it as capable as Excel. Is that even possible with the way Excel works in the Enterprise and without a Windows version?

I don’t get why Apple isn’t working harder to make iWork a suite that is as good as Office and can be used instead. One that seamlessly integrates with Office. I tried to step away from Office a few times bij using iWork, but I communicate with many people working with Office, and you always run into difficulties. When I’m pensioned I might try again. And now that everybody in the corporate world is using Teams my pipe dream looks even further away. 

You've answered your own question.

Apple's suite is more than capable of covering just about everything that most users need in an Office Suite, so it can be used instead.

'More than' 'just about' everything?

melgross

Ok, it’s out. Still odd that Apple didn’t mention it. Hmm, well it’s not really. The unified version is in beta. This is the ‘Rosetta 2 version. Oh well.

https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/12/microsoft-office-for-mac-beta-apple-silicon/

edited November 2020