I just downloaded Office on my new iPad Pro and though it was free, it appears that I need to buy a subscription to use it. Is this correct?
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Why does Apple's iPad Pro website feature Office and not iWork?
- Thread starter Rogifan
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If it's the 12.9" iPad Pro, yes. If it's the 9.7" model or anything smaller, no. Microsoft made the distinction that any screen above 10.1 inches makes the device a proper "computer" and you have to pay for the software.
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This is exactly the strategy. Windows users are familiar with Office. But you can use Office on the iPad, so look! It's familiar. And maybe the learning curve and adaptability required won't be so bad.
It's also using Microsoft's own products to hit back at MS's marketing strategy. The Surface is being promoted as a MacBook/Air/Pro replacement. Meanwhile, Apple is responding by saying you can do PC things on an iPad, which is a great PC replacement.
I'd forgotten they still did that. I bought a Macbook Air in 2011 and Mac Mini in 2012, either one of those must have qualified my Apple account with a free licence.
I was never able to use Office without a 365 subscription on my Air 2. When did they make this distinction?
Found this article that says they did it in March 2015.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2900...will-be-free-for-screens-under-10-inches.html
Pretty clear that iWork will be dead soon and Apple has accepted Office on their devices. They would never promote Office if they had serious plans for their office apps.
I believe since the infamous Big Head Bill event in the late 90's, Apple has been relatively happy with their relationship with the Microsoft Office team, despite the occasional issue over slow versions in the past.
It feels to me like Apple finally accepted that Office is more or less the standard for office productivity apps, and Microsoft finally accepted that putting Office on iOS could be a pretty profitable way forward for them--that is if the stats about desktop computing officially being on the decline are to be believed.
Agree 100%. I remember when iWork for iOS came out. At the time, you could not run Office on iOS, and it was fairly lousy/outdated even on the PC and worse on the Mac. If you wanted to edit Office docs on the iPad, your options were Documents to Go or one of several other sketchy solutions. None were reliable.
I was sick of Microsoft living in the past, focusing too heavily on Windows and Windows Phone, and completely neglecting iOS. At the time, they were still operating under the Steve Ballmer mindset. I was ready to go all-in on Apple's new solution. But unfortunately iWork was not as good as I had hoped. There were promises to update it frequently. But that all ended.
I can see why. Nadella took over Microsoft, and they went all-in on iOS. They also greatly improved Office on the PC and the Mac. It's really the only way to go for serious business needs. I don't have a problem with Apple moving on to other things.
Apple positioned the iPad Pro 9.7" as a replacement for laptops during the March event. Considering that Office is seen as the usual set of productivity apps for most office workers, it's important for Apple to show that people can still use Office on an iPad to do work. So that it can be a laptop replacement as Apple claims.
I think that's all. It's not a sign of Apple abandoning iWork (yet) or anything like that.
I think that's all. It's not a sign of Apple abandoning iWork (yet) or anything like that.
I think iWork will go the way of Aperture; a slow death and finally put out of its misery by the more standard app (Office or Lightroom).
Everyone's been saying that since AppleWorks Classic, and it's still around.
EDIT: Should have said "Everyone's been saying that since AppleWorks Classic, and it's still around in some iteration or other, the current one being iWork."
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Really? Is it still supported by Apple? There could always be copies of it floating around, but the important thing is if the company supports it.
Edit: Apparently AppleWorks was dropped back in 2007 and cannot be run on Intel Macs.
The thing is that Keynote, Numbers and Pages are all object oriented pieces of software, and thus by their very nature are almost infinitely better for creating presentations and reports.
Excel is vastly superior for handling and analysing the large and complex data sets of enterprise level large global corporate environments. These environment also house, statistically, the most users of office productivity software, and Microsoft Office has rightly cornered this space. The one exception being PowerPoint, which is in fact inferior to Keynote in almost every way, except in being compatible with Excel, which admittedly, is a huge bonus if using Excel, which most people in these environments do.
In my business, which qualifies as small/medium, I use almost exclusively Numbers and Keynote, because I can. The largest data sets I have to work with are client CRM data exports, number in the mid tens of thousands of lines. Otherwise its mostly income statements and balance sheets. Management reports are so much easier to put together in Numbers than in Excel, and the object/centered nature of all the iWork programs means that I can create the report in Numbers itself, the charts, tables, sheets, text, everything, and then just select all and paste it into the Keynote slide, and everything looks exactly the same and is arranged perfectly. If I need to make an adjustment to some numbers, it is just select all, delete, select all paste in again.
The biggest problem with the iWork apps for iOS is how much is taken away in terms of formating. The ability to create beautiful, professional grade management reports, the biggest strength of the iWork suite, is basically taken away. No customisation options for graphs, or any objects for that matter. You basically just have to use the defaults. Give the iOS apps the full format and arrangement functions as the MacOS apps and you're there. Then just continue to add back features and expand capability, keeping the two sets of apps in parity the whole time.
At the same time, the Office apps for iOS also have functionality taken away seemingly at random or arbitrarily. Like the ability to change/add/remove password protection for a file/workbook. How is that not there for Excel for iPad?
As I type this on the Smart keyboard on my 9.7" iPad Pro, I note how close this thing actually is to being to give my rMB a real run for its money even for my professional work. All I actually need is proper desktop iWork and Office apps, and I'm there.
Is it posturing on the part of both Apple and Microsoft? Is there a genuine fear of ending the PC? Is giving the full Office experience on iPad really going to end the Surface Pro and the age of the laptop?
Someone enlighten me!!
Ha ha ha, how easy it is to write long, rambling posts with the Smart Keyboard. This is by far the best keyboard accessory I've ever experienced on iPad...
Excel is vastly superior for handling and analysing the large and complex data sets of enterprise level large global corporate environments. These environment also house, statistically, the most users of office productivity software, and Microsoft Office has rightly cornered this space. The one exception being PowerPoint, which is in fact inferior to Keynote in almost every way, except in being compatible with Excel, which admittedly, is a huge bonus if using Excel, which most people in these environments do.
In my business, which qualifies as small/medium, I use almost exclusively Numbers and Keynote, because I can. The largest data sets I have to work with are client CRM data exports, number in the mid tens of thousands of lines. Otherwise its mostly income statements and balance sheets. Management reports are so much easier to put together in Numbers than in Excel, and the object/centered nature of all the iWork programs means that I can create the report in Numbers itself, the charts, tables, sheets, text, everything, and then just select all and paste it into the Keynote slide, and everything looks exactly the same and is arranged perfectly. If I need to make an adjustment to some numbers, it is just select all, delete, select all paste in again.
The biggest problem with the iWork apps for iOS is how much is taken away in terms of formating. The ability to create beautiful, professional grade management reports, the biggest strength of the iWork suite, is basically taken away. No customisation options for graphs, or any objects for that matter. You basically just have to use the defaults. Give the iOS apps the full format and arrangement functions as the MacOS apps and you're there. Then just continue to add back features and expand capability, keeping the two sets of apps in parity the whole time.
At the same time, the Office apps for iOS also have functionality taken away seemingly at random or arbitrarily. Like the ability to change/add/remove password protection for a file/workbook. How is that not there for Excel for iPad?
As I type this on the Smart keyboard on my 9.7" iPad Pro, I note how close this thing actually is to being to give my rMB a real run for its money even for my professional work. All I actually need is proper desktop iWork and Office apps, and I'm there.
Is it posturing on the part of both Apple and Microsoft? Is there a genuine fear of ending the PC? Is giving the full Office experience on iPad really going to end the Surface Pro and the age of the laptop?
Someone enlighten me!!
Ha ha ha, how easy it is to write long, rambling posts with the Smart Keyboard. This is by far the best keyboard accessory I've ever experienced on iPad...
I'm not sure. It could be collusion, but I don't think so. It could be a limitations of the iOS APIs. It could be a lack of effort committed toward improvements.As I type this on the Smart keyboard on my 9.7" iPad Pro, I note how close this thing actually is to being to give my rMB a real run for its money even for my professional work. All I actually need is proper desktop iWork and Office apps, and I'm there.
Is it posturing on the part of both Apple and Microsoft? Is there a genuine fear of ending the PC? Is giving the full Office experience on iPad really going to end the Surface Pro and the age of the laptop?
Someone enlighten me!!
Ha ha ha, how easy it is to write long, rambling posts with the Smart Keyboard. This is by far the best keyboard accessory I've ever experienced on iPad...
Apple is giving iWork away to new device owners. How much effort is Apple going to put into it? I would gladly pay for updates and upgrades to iWork iOS/OSX if they were to be on par with iWork '09 and work to advance is further... but I'm in the minority with that opinion.
IMO iWorks for iOS was just a stop-gap solution to the lack of Microsoft Office on the iPad.
If that is all that it was, why do you think Apple "dumbed down" the OSX version of iWork to be functionally compatible with the iOS version?
Microsoft gives the Office suite app Free to tablets under 10", therefore the large iPad Pro does not qualify for free Microsoft office. Otherwise Apple would have the larger one there also. Apple can't be seen to be "selling" a competitors software.
The thing is that Microsoft is also "giving away" Office with the purchase of new Microsoft hardware, are they not? I'm talking about the Surface line-up here. Don't you get a year of 365 free with the purchase of a Surface Pro/Book?
No. It comes with a 30 day trial. The only Surface to come with a free copy of Office was the Surface RT and Surface 2.
Aha, ok...so I wan't imagining things at least. They did give it away at some point
