“Microsoft is throwing a small bone to Apple users,” Bryan M. Wolfe reports for AppAdvice.
“No, Redmond hasn’t announced Office for iOS. However, they have showered Mac users with some love,” Wolfe reports. “The latest update for Office for Mac 2011 puts it more in line with the company’s more feature-rich Windows counterpart, Office 2013. In addition, the Mac software is now more immersed into the Office 365 ecosystem.”
Wolfe reports, “In many respects, Office for Mac 2011 14.3.4 looks to be a launching pad for more things to come. Firstly, it includes the Calibri Light font for the first time. Prior to this addition, Windows users often saw font substitutions when they received documents from Mac users. The update also adds built-in support for SkyDrive, and SharePoint in Microsoft Word.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Our most sincere condolences to those who have to deal with that company and their bloated dreck.
The horror…and I have to deal with the windoze versions, which they just discontinued Office 2010 and we have to move to 2013 which is an unmitigated disaster. I wish we could just go all Mac….sigh…..
What is this Microsoft Office of which you speak? Is it in the same league as Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales?
Sounds so Old to Middle English to me.
🙂
long before Chaucer…you may have observed Ribbon slithering around the when God wrote Adam & Eve’s eviction notice.
a word processing program released in October, 1983..just doesn’t matter nearly 30 years later.
See above ^ comment. 😉
Congratulations MS on getting a new font! That’s amazing.
Please tell me you’re being sarcastic. Please. Calibri is the evil spawn of Satan.
Seriously, what I think he’s pointing out is that for Mac users to get the same functionality in 2011 as Windows users got in 2013 was… wait for it…. a…. font! Woo hoo!
Meaning = ZERO
Actually, it’s a huge deal. Calibri became the default font for Office 2007, so it took Microsoft a little over 6 years to fix font substitution issues with the Mac version. Way to go! The trend indicates we’ll see iOS versions of Office the day before doomsday, give or take a day.
Curious how there were font substitution issues to fix. Curious, that is, because MS *bought/licensed* the TrueType technology from Apple.
Nothing to do with TT technology. It’s just that the Calibri font wasn’t included in the Mac versions of Office until now.
In my opinion, Office for iOS would be as useful as legs on a fish. I’ve completely immersed myself in iWork for iOS. I think you don’t really need a full blown Word processing program (or app) in an iOS device that was not touch optimised as it would be incredibly clunky to operate with a keyboard and mouse which is what I suspect Microsoft will end up designing Office for iOS for – akin to the Office suite for the Surface which is practically unusable without a keyboard and mouse.
Why would I want crippled functionality on my iOS device when Pages delivers the same or better functionality than Word for $9.99. And for that price I get to install it on my iPhone and iPad as it is a universal app. I doubt MS would allow that as MS is all out to rip money off its users. It’ll probably release an iPhone only Word app and make you pay another $20 or whatever for the iPad version. That would be typical MS – gouging its customers with the many variety of Office suites and Windows versions.
I find Office for the Mac indispensable only because practically everyone in the office that I exchange files with uses MS Office for Windows and file interoperability is important if you want to keep your sanity doing edits on a collaborative scale. MS has a lock in Office suites for that reason – there aren’t any compatible alternatives and Apple doesn’t look that interested in developing its iWork suite to take on Office.
But if you’re a home office user, then iWork will be right up your street. I have iWork and Office installed on my Mac and I almost always use Pages or Numbers if I don’t need to do collaborative work on the documents. iWork is simpler but by the same token much easier to use than Office.
I had the misfortune of using Office 2010 on a Windows machine and the horror that is the Ribbon meant that I could not be productive. Thankfully MS has seen fit not to transpose the Ribbon to the Mac versions of Office. And for that reason alone, Office for Mac remains somewhat pleasant to use.
Legs on a fish is how even you got here in the first place.
Unless he wriggled out…
Yes, I am in a rare mood today!
😛
BLN is gods gift to woman, didnt U know?
Leg on a fish are useless, unless the fish has lungs.
Legs, d’oh!
You must be on the 2008 version of Office:Mac cause the 2011 version indeed has a ribbon, however there are still menu commands available.
Excel. Dang, the ONLY MSoft app I use as I NEED pivot tables and the like.
come on apple, Numbers is a toy – make it a REAL spreadsheet and get us off MSOFT!!!!
Exactly which feature do you want from Numbers that Excel has and you can’t live without it? Most people who complain about Apple productivity products don’t take the time to try them and find out that they do everything they want them to.
I have yet to find an acquaintance or colleague or friend who makes full use of the features in Word. They easily could use Pages to do EVERYTHING they want to do with Word.
He did mention the feature: pivot tables. Excel for Windows has good support for accessing databases directly from within your spreadsheet, allowing all kinds of workflow opportunities, from the simplest: one spreadsheet that produces your budget report automatically; to the complex: joining data from disparate databases into a cohesive picture within your spreadsheet, then graphed and dropped into your word processing report, up-to-date every time you call it up to reprint. A long time ago there was a Mac OS app “Data Pivot” that would do all that, too. It was good stuff.
Goal seek!
Outside of some features that have been mentioned, there are minor little quirks in Numbers that just don’t make sense. As one who uses spreadsheets for a living, Numbers is simple not as powerful or feature rich as Excel. Even for day to day things, Excel simple does spreadsheets better. I don’t mind using pages, but I rely heavily on cloud saves, and I migrate from my Mac at home to my PC at work everyday, and it is extremely frustrating that Pages files by default don’t work with Word. It is small, but having to take an extra step for every document to make sure it saves as a .doc is annoying.
Let me get this right, you are upset because Pages saves files in it’s own format by default and not the format of a competing product?
In your world choosing export->Word from the file menu is too many steps to share a document with word users?
It is frustrating that the icloud you ‘heavily rely on’ has a download as word option and does the conversion on the fly for you?
I’d hate to see what happens when you encounter real problems and real frustration in life. Do you curl up in the fetal position and just cry yourself to sleep or what?
Let me get this right, you are upset because Pages saves files in it’s own format by default and not the format of a competing product?
In your world choosing export->Word from the file menu is too many steps to share a document with word users?
It is frustrating that the cloud you ‘heavily rely on’ has a download as word option and does the conversion on the fly for you?
I’d hate to see what happens when you encounter real problems and real frustration in life. Do you curl up in the fetal position and just cry yourself to sleep or what?
I think everyone is used to Microsoft being able to offer only a small bone.
Why would I want a “small bone” from Microsoft?
Lets not make fun of Bill! Doh!
I still like and prefer Microsoft Office even though it gets worse with every new version. The stupidest thing is the ribbon! It cannot do more. It is just harder to find what you need.
I have had enough of office and to be encouraged to pay an annual subscription is the final straw.
“…However, they have showered Mac users with some love,”
Reeeiieeeiieiiiieiiiiiialllllllllyyyyyy?
Well, folks, we use MS Office for the Mac. It is superior in most respects to iWork, which Apple has mysteriously stopped developing and clearly intends to remain an amateur’s tool.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2830450 explains what is included in minor update 14.3.4. It may be news to the snarky, tasteless whiners here, but Calibri Light is not the only issue addressed. Most of them are Outlook & Powerpoint bug fixes that don’t effect most users. And while it is true that MS shouldn’t have so many issues to correct, it’s not as though Apple doesn’t also release security updates & bug fixes too. To the objective reader, the majority of posts here are juvenile at best.
I’ll replace Office for the Mac as soon as Apple or some other third party can offer a _complete_ replacement. So far the only part of the Office bundle we dropped completely is Outlook. Excel and Word remain practically uncontested for heavy duty work. Still waiting on you, Cook.
Well, guys, iWork is not the only alternative.
OpenOffice
NeoOffice (same code base as OpenOffice?)
……
You forgot LibreOffice.
Hey at least Microsoft updates office on the mac. When was the last iWork update on the mac?
Apple treats iWork on the mac like its a dead product.
Ain’t nuthin’ in the updates for me, cause I ain’t puttin the stuff in my Mac!
DISCLAIMER: I love my Apple products, the only reason I have a windows 7 tower is for gaming, if Apple actually made a good tower with a good GPU on BTO I’d be bootcamping windows 7 and running OSX. Anyway.
Why all the office bashing? It’s the best word processing program around, I use it at work and home all the time. Nothing beats it, and at Least Microsoft takes care of its Apple users, and updates their products for the Apple users.
If your to poor for Office, sucks to be you. Go back to your g5 iMacs
I have said it before and will say it again. Office for iOS is very important for Apple despite Mac Daily News constantly trying to deny it. It would give iOS and iPad a tremendous bost especially in the Enterprise but also with consumers that recognise Office.