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Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

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Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#51

Post by zapzupnz »

phs318u wrote: post #20
freehunter wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew they've had full Office since forever. I just didn't know if the App Store version itself was full Office or a mobile/web Office like on the iOS App Store.

According to this post [0], Microsoft use a "shared Office codebase for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android". Before the individual iOS Office apps, Microsoft had an "Office mobile" app which may well have been a web app (though I can't find anything on that either way). [0] https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Share...

I believe it was indeed a web app. The efforts to get a shared code base began in earnest after Nadella took over as CEO at MS, and Office stopped being a means to sell copies of Windows and rather a chargeable service unto itself - I believe the shared codebase first started to surface in the apps for iOS and Android.

Well, I say that. Really, the Windows and macOS version had been sharing code for ages, but plenty of it was still bespoke for macOS. I think their rewrite to Cocoa, which I believe happened around the same time as the iOS apps started being developed, helped to bring further parity.

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#52

Post by zapzupnz »

toasterlovin wrote: post #21
erichurkman wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quality on Mac is nowhere near the quality of Office on Windows. At least Excel. Slow, crashes, tons of missing shortcuts, etc.

FWIW, they have added a lot of missing shortcuts in the last few years. Haven't used Windows Excel in ages, though, so I'm not sure what's still missing. That being said, Excel for Mac has gotten slower in a recent update. And the UI text, which already kinda looked crummy and not very Mac-like, now looks even less Mac-like. But Excel is the lingua franca of business, so I keep on using it.

Re: the text; I think they're going for a consistent visual design language with the iOS apps - for better or worse.

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#53

Post by zapzupnz »

xattt wrote: post #22
walterbell wrote: post #18

Can you pay to use the app for only one or two months? Or does it requiring subscribing and cancelling?

Some universities offer basic Office 365 (Word, PP, Excel) when you are a registered student.

And some non-tertiary (primary/elementary, secondary/high) schools, too.

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#54

Post by npunt »

killion wrote: post #26

I'm wondering if it's worth uninstalling Office and reinstalling. If it uses the App Store update mechanism instead of Microsoft Autoupdate I would prefer it. Autoupdate presents a window almost every time a launch an Office application.

Also, the App Store version is going to be a bit more sandboxed.

I just replaced the regular with the App Store version and it went without a hitch. Just needed keychain access to Microsoft identity, and a login to Live.

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#55

Post by sturgill »

erichurkman wrote: post #17
kevindqc wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's recent that it's the "same" Office though, no? It used to have different codebase (with, I'm sure, some reused code) and even had different release versions (ie: Office 2011 on Mac VS Office 2010/2013 on Windows) I dug a bit and I found this article[1] that says it's now using a common codebase for Office 2016 since January last year, so I guess it's not something new with this new release of Office 365 on mac.…

The quality on Mac is nowhere near the quality of Office on Windows. At least Excel. Slow, crashes, tons of missing shortcuts, etc.

I haven’t researched recently, but Excel used to run on a single core on the Mac. So any decent sized file would cause tremendous issues. I used to run Windows via Parallels just to use the Windows version of Excel.

Edit: it looks like multi threads were introduced in January 2018 [0].

[0] https://excel.uservoice.com/forums/304933-excel-for-mac/sugg...

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#56

Post by npunt »

Big move. I see this potentially as groundwork for the eventual integration of Mac and iOS App Stores, which you have to imagine is something Apple wants in the years ahead as platforms converge on common software stack and UX. It's also a signal that the App Store team may now be willing to do the deals necessary to attract MacOS apps back toward this larger strategic initiative (vs just trying to maximize revenue).

From Microsoft's perspective, now that Windows is sidelined, Office is their primary consumer platform and that means UX outweighs any strategic tax of trying to make the Windows version better.

Have you tried to download Office from their website? It's a horrible, braindead experience. You have to log in to your Live account, then go to a particular page to manage your existing Office installs that is super confusing. Coupled with the poor autoupdate UX on Mac [1], and it's almost like Microsoft doesn't want you to have Office on Mac.

I think the issue finally reached a breaking point there and they shifted to UX > control. This is a positive shift for them, since being on the App Store means features ship faster and users see value in their Office subscription. Aside from update UX this is obviously a way to bump their Mac Office numbers. Seems like a good play from both Apple & Microsoft's perspective.

[1] Right now Microsoft's autoupdate UX is pretty terrible at keeping things up to date. When I visit my parents, they're almost always several versions behind, and as another commenter pointed out, a decent part of that is the autoupdate needing to update itself. They have automated updates but its hard to trust that process won't result in issues when documents are open, and it presents a lot of cognitive load to users on top of the OS & App Store updates.

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#57

Post by peteretep »

tphan wrote: post #28
krembo wrote: post #27

Office was available for Mac for many years. The news here is that Office is now in the Mac App Store, not that big of a news. Anyhow, worth noting that the Mac versions of Office are no near to the Windows versions. They are thin clients with only a portion of the win capabilities, and those which exists are buggy, to say the least. If I had a Mac, I would go to G Suite, which gives better capabilities for 99.9% of…

I use both Office for Mac and Windows all the time and Office for Mac is pretty reliable IMO. They pretty much have feature parity. Which features are you missing?

Is MS Access still missing?

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#58

Post by thought_alarm »

walterbell wrote: post #18

Can you pay to use the app for only one or two months? Or does it requiring subscribing and cancelling?

You have to purchase a subscription, but you can cancel at any time.

If you purchase an in-app subscription through the App Store with your Apple ID, the only option is a yearly subscription.

If you purchase a subscription directly from Microsoft's website, you can purchase either a yearly or monthly subscription.

The yearly subscription costs the same in both cases, and is cheaper unless you only want to use the app for a few months.

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#59

Post by judge2020 »

thought_alarm wrote: post #58
walterbell wrote: post #18

Can you pay to use the app for only one or two months? Or does it requiring subscribing and cancelling?

You have to purchase a subscription, but you can cancel at any time. If you purchase an in-app subscription through the App Store with your Apple ID, the only option is a yearly subscription. If you purchase a subscription directly from Microsoft's website, you can purchase either a yearly or monthly subscription. The yearly subscription costs the same in both cases, and is cheaper unless you only want to use the app…

> The yearly subscription costs the same in both cases,

Is this through in-app purchases? It would seem counterintuitive to let Apple take 30% from the yearly subscription if they've gotten away with distributing outside the app store for so long. (but they may have a special revenue share agreement)

Re: Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

#60

Post by mark_l_watson »

There are some services that are so worth the money that I am happy to pay for: Office 365, Dropbox, and GSuite.

I am as much of a cheapskate as the next guy, but it makes sense to pay for services that help get work done and/or make life easier.

I am curious if Microsoft is paying Apple a 30% cut, or if they got a better deal.

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