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Is it Worth switching from MS to Apple for Office 365 renewal?

jaybar

jaybar

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 11, 2008
2,175
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Hi

I have an office 365 subscription through the Microsoft store that ends in mid-September.

Is it worth switching over to the App Store (Apple). Will there be a lot of work to uninstall, including uninstalling the license?

Is there any clear advantage to moving to the App Store for this subscription and does that outweigh the work involved in your opinion ?

Thanks in advance.
 
Pages, Numbers and Keynote are all free. Unless you need some of the heavy duty math features of Excel, or the alleged wordsmithing power of Word, there's no reason to give money to MicroSlop.
 
Bending Pixels said:
Pages, Numbers and Keynote are all free. Unless you need some of the heavy duty math features of Excel, or the alleged wordsmithing power of Word, there's no reason to give money to MicroSlop.
Click to expand...

My husband wants to continue to use WORD. Switching to the Apple suite is not an option at this time.

My question was and remains is it worth the issues with uninstalling, to do it from the Apple Store? Please confine responses to the question posed.

Thanks.
 
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My opinion is no; but for these applications, what is the advantage of purchasing through the app store anyway?

Personally, I have been buying the annual O365 license for the up-to-date suite software for 6 users now and their respective 1TB of online storage each for quite a while, but I always buy the renewals from Ebay, as they are cheaper and I have never had to uninstall and reinstall. All you need is the new license number, which you can add at any time and MS accurately keeps track of the next required renewal date.
 
Agree. Off the cuff, I don't see a reason to buy through the Apple Store. You are already dealing with Microsoft for the O365 subscription.

Why not just let them bill you through the Microsoft Office website/portal directly? Easy-peasy, unless you really want things billed through Apple for some reason.
 
Last edited:
Keeping it with MS would certainly make life easier. The only thing is I hate their Updater. Thanks.
 
It's not mutually exclusive. As chrfr said, you can just download the apps from the App Store and login with your Office 365 credentials. By using the App Store version, the Microsoft Update app is not used and the apps are automatically updated as new versions are rolled out (or as according to your App Store settings).

EDIT: You don't need to uninstall the old versions first, when you click to download in the App Store, it will take care of everything.
 
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Euroamerican said:
Agree. Off the cuff, I don't see a reason to buy through the Apple Store. You are already dealing with Microsoft for the O365 subscription.

Why not just let them bill you through the Microsoft Office website/portal directly? Easy-peasy, unless you really want things billed through Apple for some reason.
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In theory you can save ~15% using iTunes gift cards. Not sure if Microsoft has the same type deal going.
 
sub150 said:
In theory you can save ~15% using iTunes gift cards. Not sure if Microsoft has the same type deal going.
Click to expand...
You can often find discounted Office 365 subscriptions (e.g. on Ebay).

Personally I'm still subscribed through Microsoft, but using the applications downloaded from the app store. The main advantage is that the both the installation on a new computer as well as updates are easier than using Microsoft's installer and updater. You can also select which applications you actually want to install, whereas the MS installer always installs the whole package whether you want it or not.
 
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Exactly as danielagos and Rigby have stated. I had the Office 365 apps downloaded directly from Microsoft's Office 365 website on my Mac for years. I absolutely hated using Microsoft Auto-Updater. I was pleased to see the 365 suite become available through the Mac App Store. I just installed the App Store versions and the OS overwrote the Microsoft versions with the App Store versions. I had to sign into each of the Office apps with the Microsoft ID I used to purchase the subscription and voilà. It was a simple process, I was not charged twice, and all Office updates come through the Mac App Store. I've since renewed the subscription, again through Microsoft's website, and experienced no disruption of service on my Mac or iPad.
 
culb0743 said:
Exactly as danielagos and Rigby have stated. I had the Office 365 apps downloaded directly from Microsoft's Office 365 website on my Mac for years. I absolutely hated using Microsoft Auto-Updater. I was pleased to see the 365 suite become available through the Mac App Store. I just installed the App Store versions and the OS overwrote the Microsoft versions with the App Store versions. I had to sign into each of the Office apps with the Microsoft ID I used to purchase the subscription and voilà. It was a simple process, I was not charged twice, and all Office updates come through the Mac App Store. I've since renewed the subscription, again through Microsoft's website, and experienced no disruption of service on my Mac or iPad.
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Do you only have to sign in once, or every time you use the app?
 
Darth.Titan said:
Just the once. I purchased through Microsoft and installed the App Store version when it became available.
Updates are much more transparent.
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Thanks

We have two user accounts on the iMac. Will we both have to do this or just me as the MS account holder?
 
jaybar said:
Thanks

We have two user accounts on the iMac. Will we both have to do this or just me as the MS account holder?
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I'm not really sure how the Mac App Store handles the subscription side of things, but I'm certain it would not require two separate installations. If memory serves, signing into the applications with a Microsoft ID will be required under each user account on the iMac to 'activate' the license (but this may have changed under Mojave). As the primary subscriber, you can share the license with up to five family members, so your partner can sign into Office 365 using his or her own Microsoft ID and the documents they create will be associated with his/her OneDrive, Outlook, etc.

So in summary, only one installation on your iMac, but most likely two 'sign ins' to activate the license under both iMac user accounts. Signing in to one of the Office apps, activates all of them, so you don't have to sign into Word, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Excel separately.
 
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