“Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Thursday unveiled Office for iPad, a highly anticipated and long overdue version of its bread-and-butter productivity software for Apple’s popular tablet,” Nancy Blair reports for USA Today.
“The app will be live for free in Apple’s App Store today. You’ll be able to read and present your content that way, but for creating and editing content, you will need an Office 365 subscription,” Blair reports. “Office software lets you create and edit documents, calculate spreadsheets and design presentations and graphics through its Word, Excel and PowerPoint programs. Microsoft moved to a subscription model for Office last year with Office 365 Home Premium, which runs $9.99 a month, or $99.99 a year.”
Read more in the full article here.
“The interface is reminiscent of other versions of Office, with the Ribbon formatting bar up top, but Microsoft says it’s been rethought to be touch-friendly,” Harry McCracken reports for TIME. “And as with other versions of Office, everything is saved by default to OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive), Microsoft’s online storage service.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Way too little. Way too late.
Smart users will continue to use Apple’s iWork which is free, not hobbled in order to force unending subscription fees, and works seamlessly across iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Web browsers.
Related articles:
Microsoft CEO Nadella to use his first press conference to talk a lot about Apple – March 27, 2014
Microsoft Office for iPad: 5 big questions – March 26, 2014
Microsoft CEO Nadella expected to finally admit holding Office for iPad hostage a failed strategy – March 26, 2014
Microsoft Office on iPad: Too little too late? – March 23, 2014
iPad generation shuns Microsoft Office; one of Microsoft’s biggest squandered opportunities – March 14, 2014
Apple makes the world’s most advanced operating system freeware – October 23, 2013
Apple’s new free OS X for Mac hurts Microsoft and the Windows PC industry in myriad ways – October 22, 2013
Apple exploits Microsoft’s confused hesitation on Office for iPad – October 22, 2013
Apple’s OS X Mavericks available today free from the Mac App Store – October 22, 2013
Apple releases next-gen 64-bit iWork and iLife apps for OS X and iOS; free with new Macs and iOS devices – October 22, 2013
Counterproposal – $10 for each Office app (so I can just buy the 1 or 2 apps I’ll actually use), the fee is one time and includes at least 2 years of future updates (obviously), documents are saved to my iPad, and optionally sync with Dropbox or iCloud. Do we have deal, Microsoft?
No deal? Fine, I’m moving on.
Just say no to IT doofuses
Remember kids, just day no!
Join Adobe Photoshop in my dead and buried bin.
For those of you that do have an Office 365 subscription, personally you would be better using the iWork suite anyway. It’s certainly better than this train wreck.
I read on three other websites that Office for iPad is free and does NOT require an Office 360 subscription for home use. I don’t have an iPad with me to check it right now – we should do a fact check this before we write them off completely.
Nows the right time to make Apple’s iWork for Windows.
A lot of people may download this to view documents even though iWork can do this already, but since most people don’t stop to read details, they’ll be pissed to find out that they must pay to edit documents. Microsoft may have been successful with this if they had not latched on a subscription fee. A lot of customers may have been fine with paying once to purchase Office for iPad, but why pay a subscription fee when there are a lot of other apps that cost less over time, or are free?
HAHAHA. Vainglorious Microslut has hit rock bottom, and it ain’t pretty.
I pay $25/year for iCloud. 10GB.
I wonder how much more benefit I would get from MS by paying 4 times as much. Granted, if you are on Apples $50/year plan, then you only have to pay twice as much (if my math is right. Ha!)
And, if you pay Apple $125/year for your 50GB, you are paying mor than you would with O365.
Just saying…
Anyone know the MS disk limit? Just so my lazy ass doesn’t need to look it up…
Why can I edit office document for free on iphone and pay $100/year on ipad?
Subscription ? Forget it !
Do you subscribe to iCloud? The 5GB free account didn’t do it for me. So I pay $25/year for 10GB.
O365 web site doesn’t mention a disk space limit. So the hundred /year may be worth it if you have a lot of data (and I mean a LOT of data)
And O365 has “family packs” that Apple used to have with MobileMe that I used to use befor iCloud came around.
Oh, and by the way… My wife just hit 9.8GB in her photo stream. Time to update her account to $25/year.
Now I will be paying $50/year.
That O365 family pack is moving closer to being attractive (if I really lived Word)
Sorry… Update her account to $50/year and I will now be paying $75/year for our two accounts.
Just saying…
And only available in 135 countries so users in Thailand for example will have to stick to iWork, Documents to Go, Doc2, Files: Dcoument Reader, Spreadsheet, along with all the other jotters, note-takers and organisers that are already available to me.