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

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Comments

  • Reply 41 of 67
    A major problem is the inability to connect to DropBox or any other non-Microsoft cloud. For this reason, I could not read any of my MS-Office docs, spreadsheets, or presentations with MS-Office for iPad. I won't be trying the iPad Office until this is worked out.
  • Reply 42 of 67
    mrsneezy wrote: »
    So this is interesting i downloaded it and opened one of my excel spreadsheets. firstly all Formulas that refer to an external spreadsheet are instantly set as the last data saved. (no dynamically updating spreadsheets) the sparklines don't work and no pictures. so this app is worse than Numbers.

    AI please do a good comparison review especially with these things.

    Although i am not surprised that Microsoft's offering is not even as advertised as their offering are rarely as advertised i would have thought they would have gotten some features right.

    Does Excel support pivot tables?
  • Reply 43 of 67

    Also No Support for pivot tables. the data is set as what it was saved as last with no ability to select options

  • Reply 44 of 67
    mrsneezy wrote: »
    Also No Support for pivot tables.

    Mmm... Apple removed categories from OSX Numbers to make it feature equivalent on iOS and iCloud -- I wonder why MS did this.

    Could you find any help or feature list?

    BTW, you can get a free 1 month trial of Office 365 at the MS web site.

    BTW2, this is the best implementation of the ribbon menu that I've seen in any MS product.
  • Reply 45 of 67
    First impression: Word is a pretty good app -- it's responsive, has most needed features and

    seems to be well implemented.

    It will be interesting to do a feature by feature comparison with Pages.

    I suspect that many in enterprise will require Word -- for those who don't and for home use it's hard to the price of Pages!

    In either case, Apple and the iPad win!
  • Reply 46 of 67
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post





    Does Excel support pivot tables?

    no

     

    Alas i did a quick comparison with Numbers opening the same Excel spreadsheet and Numbers removed all of the Formulas but did keep the images (although they lost any Excel formatting)

     

    Also no support for expanding and collapsing groups for either program.

  • Reply 47 of 67
    swissmac2swissmac2 Posts: 216member
    Apple will be making more money from selling a year's subscription to Office 365 for Office for iPad than if they sold the whole suite of iWork. Is this why the recently launched new versions of iWork are actually less productive, less capable, and less useful than the old ones?
  • Reply 48 of 67

    the worst think i have

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Dick Applebaum View Post



    First impression: Word is a pretty good app -- it's responsive, has most needed features and



    seems to be well implemented.



    It will be interesting to do a feature by feature comparison with Pages.



    I suspect that many in enterprise will require Word -- for those who don't and for home use it's hard to the price of Pages!



    In either case, Apple and the iPad win!

     

     

    the editing tools seem very minimal there is only 4 colors to choose from on my iPhone

  • Reply 49 of 67

    the word editing tools are very lacking on my iPhone only three colors and "no ability to copy and paste"

     

    [Edit] i found the copy mode you have to double tap???  why is Microsoft not using the "system" copy and paste?

  • Reply 50 of 67
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    philboogie wrote: »
    Written by yours truly, the one and only......
    So you're DED? :wow:

    /s

    <div style="background-image:none;border-top-style:none;border-top-width:medium;padding-top:6px;width:717px;">
    <div style="display:inline;">
    <div style="background-image:none;color:rgb(51,51,51);padding-bottom:5px;">
    <div style="padding-bottom:2px;">
    <h2 style="color:rgb(0,0,0);display:inline;margin-bottom:0px;margin-top:0px;padding-bottom:0px;">yours truly</h2>

    </div>
    <div style="margin-bottom:0em;margin-left:0em;margin-top:0em;">
    <div><em style="display:inline;font-style:italic;padding-right:3px;"><span id="user_hotword"><span>noun</span></span></em>

    <div style="background-image:none;padding-bottom:5px;"><strong style="color:rgb(123,123,123);display:block;float:left;width:28px;"><span><span>1.</span></span></strong>

    <div style="padding-left:37px;"><span><span>a</span> <span>conventional</span> <span>phrase</span> <span>used</span> <span>at</span> <span>the</span> <span>end</span> <span>of</span> <span>a</span> <span>letter.</span></span></div>
    </div>

    <div style="background-image:none;padding-bottom:5px;"><strong style="color:rgb(123,123,123);display:block;float:left;width:28px;"><span><span>2.</span></span></strong>

    <div style="padding-left:37px;"><span style="display:inline;"><em style="display:inline;font-style:italic;"><span><span>Informal.</span> </span></em>
    </span>
    I; myself; me: <em style="display:inline;font-style:italic;"><span><span>I'm</span> <span>only</span> <span>in</span> <span>business</span> <span>to</span> <span>profit</span> <span>yours</span> <span>truly.</span></span></em>
    </div>
    </div>

    </div>
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    <div style="margin-bottom:0em;margin-left:0em;margin-top:0em;padding-top:10px;"> </div>

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    Heck, no. I just wanted responses, so thank you for DED.
  • Reply 51 of 67
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    First impression: Word is a pretty good app -- it's responsive, has most needed features and

    seems to be well implemented.

    It will be interesting to do a feature by feature comparison with Pages.

    I suspect that many in enterprise will require Word -- for those who don't and for home use it's hard to the price of Pages!

    In either case, Apple and the iPad win!

    Does Word work in portrait mode? All screen dumps are landscape, all 3 apps.
    swissmac2 wrote: »
    Apple will be making more money from selling a year's subscription to Office 365 for Office for iPad than if they sold the whole suite of iWork. Is this why the recently launched new versions of iWork are actually less productive, less capable, and less useful than the old ones?

    Apple doesn't take a cut. The subscription is being sold through MS.

    Edit: it now turns out they do. Mea culpa.
  • Reply 52 of 67
    Don't forget the mind-numbing, wandering-rant, jaw-dropping anti-Microsoft editorial!

    DED is probably cooking up a hot mess as I type this. Should be shocking and appalling, as per ever. Every time I read (the first paragraph of) one of his "articles" by mistake I consider deleting my AI bookmark and going back to macrumors.

    I like the other writers, as a rule, more than the macrumors writers, though.
  • Reply 53 of 67
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    moxom wrote: »
    philboogie wrote: »
    A link to the presentation would be great AI.
    http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/press/2014/mar14/03-27mobilecloudpr.aspx

    ;)

    I have to say that although I'm not a fan of this subscription model, the Apps do look very good.

    I think the presentation overall was great - well done Microsoft!

    All I see is one picture and one grey rectangle window. Guess that's where the stream is. Probably Silverlight...

    Thanks though

    edit: just watched in on my Mac. Good presentation. Really looking forward to see their innovations for the new Windows version next week.
  • Reply 54 of 67
    swissmac2swissmac2 Posts: 216member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by PhilBoogie View Post





    Does Word work in portrait mode? All screen dumps are landscape, all 3 apps.

    Apple doesn't take a cut. The subscription is being sold through MS.



    Edit: it now turns out they do. Mea culpa.

     

    No worries. I always check my info before posting, saves embarrassment! And there were two sources saying the cut was real: 'nuf said. :-)

  • Reply 55 of 67
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SwissMac2 View Post



    Apple will be making more money from selling a year's subscription to Office 365 for Office for iPad than if they sold the whole suite of iWork. Is this why the recently launched new versions of iWork are actually less productive, less capable, and less useful than the old ones?

    Interesting conspiracy theory, but I think the accepted explanation for the iWork for OS X downgrade is so that all versions of iWork have feature parity. The hope is that they will restore the missing features as they can be reintroduced on the platforms simultaneously, especially difficult on iCloud, which is shackled with the limitations of HTML5. 

  • Reply 56 of 67
    Quote:



    Originally Posted by mstone View Post

     

    Interesting conspiracy theory, but I think the accepted explanation for the iWork for OS X downgrade is so that all versions of iWork have feature parity. The hope is that they will restore the missing features as they can be reintroduced on the platforms simultaneously, especially difficult on iCloud, which is shackled with the limitations of HTML5. 


    http://www.macworld.com/article/2090767/iwork-updates-for-mac-ios-return-missing-features.html



    They had already brought back a few missing features.  Supposedly an additional reason why iWork for OSX downgraded, along with feature parity, is that all of it was rewritten from the ground up.  Is it my imagination or does it open and handle non Apple formats better now?  I suspect that more of the features will make their way back

  • Reply 57 of 67
    crossladcrosslad Posts: 527member
    Best feature I have found so far on free version is: open a template in PowerPoint, email it to yourself, open in Keynote and you can use the template. Use the open in another program feature and open it back up in PowerPoint too. Haven't been able to find the word and excel apps so don't know if this works with them as well.
  • Reply 58 of 67
    hydrogenhydrogen Posts: 314member
    But ... But ... i thought iPads were just for entertainment, and that no serious productive work could be done with them, in particular because they have no keyboard ?
  • Reply 59 of 67
    dugbugdugbug Posts: 283member
    bcode wrote: »
    "...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.

    70% > 0
  • Reply 60 of 67
    swissmac2swissmac2 Posts: 216member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post

     

    Interesting conspiracy theory, but I think the accepted explanation for the iWork for OS X downgrade is so that all versions of iWork have feature parity. The hope is that they will restore the missing features as they can be reintroduced on the platforms simultaneously, especially difficult on iCloud, which is shackled with the limitations of HTML5. 


    Of course that's widely known but I'm looking at motivations, not PR explanations. Why degrade a product unless you know a better one is in the wings - more full featured and more profitable too? It's public knowledge that Apple only upgraded iWork to a very usable product when Microsoft were threatening to remove Office from Macs altogether, and as soon as a full featured Office appeared, with Macro functionality, iWork was put on the shelf to gather dust - it's five years since iWork 09 was released, although there were minor improvements loaded as "unlabelled additions" in OS or iTunes upgrades occasionally. And of course, Apple never wanted to write "business software" which is how Microsoft got started with Office anyway...

     

    From my perspective it's a tragedy if Apple persist with this product degrade/cross platform feature parity as I use iWork at work and never on my iPad (although I do have it there) and will NOT be getting MS Office due to a number of factors, not least of which are the terrible user interface, the lack of intuitiveness, and the pricing model.

     

    The problem is an iPad is not a desktop computer, and I don't use them in the same way at all. Making software assuming people do is missing the point; it seems more like just following whatever the financial analysts and Samsung/Microsoft shills scream that Apple doesn't have... or should do.

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