Apple announces iWork for iCloud

Apple announces iWork for iCloud


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Now that's something I really like! I'm not particularly a lover of the iWork apps, but being able to use them from the cloud will be helpful especially when I'm away from the iMac at my home office.

Google had a weak set of Office-like tools in Google Drive. I dumped it for Microsoft's SkyDrive tools...very powerful, but I had issues with getting Office to open on either of my computers (a Win7 and a MB).

I then began to wonder if Apple's iCloud would catch up soon.

It did.

Now I want to try this out.

I personally think Microsoft made a mistake by not supporting Office for iOS. And, to be honest if they come out with a lease only version of Office for the Mac, I'll be making a switch to another program.

hmm. interesting. i'd want to see how private it is; Googledocs isn't private enough and w sensitive work docs I wonder if this will do ... iCloud is known to not be very private so this is a concern. hmm.

Any online document service is going to have some loss of privacy. If you're working with sensitive data, it shouldn't be anywhere near any cloud service.

chscag said:

I personally think Microsoft made a mistake by not supporting Office for iOS. And, to be honest if they come out with a lease only version of Office for the Mac, I'll be making a switch to another program.

Click to expand...

They have Microsoft office for iOS now.

Better late than never? Not so sure if it is going to do well considering iWorks for iCloud is just around the corner.

Office Mobile for Office 365 Subscribers (iOS) Review
by Lisa Eadicicco on June 18, 2013

Pros: Clean design; SkyDrive and SharePoint integration; Useful editing tools; Commenting feature for adding notes

Cons: Doesn't support all Office 365 apps; Requires Office 365 subscription; Can't create PowerPoint documents within the app; No Track Changes in Word Mobile

The Verdict: Microsoft's Office Mobile app for the iPhone offers the tools you need to edit and tweak documents on the go.

Click to expand...

Like I said before... if I have to subscribe to use MS Office for iOS, I'll use something else instead. And, if they go the subscription route for the next version of Office for the Mac, I'll quit using it altogether.

Office for iOS doesn't support the iPad either (at least not with a tablet friendly interface) which is where more of the important editing will happen. MS really needs to do that and disentangle it from 365 (as chscag notes) for it to be of any use.

I purchased Office for Mac 2011 in the spring of '13 and one of the selling features was 'free upgrade".

Lo and behold, the 'free upgrade' was the privilege of RENTING the software at $10 month by converting to Office 365.

Felt mislead, but kept the product since I had the feeling that the days of being able to purchase "Word" are numbered. Heck, at $10 month you could instead buy all of the Apple offerings (Pages, etc.) in no time.

BTW, called Microsoft support since I wanted to add Outlook (by purchasing, not renting) and the sales rep advised me: a) Can't buy Outlook as of 5 days before my call; b) not to upgrade to the 'rent' model. Still trying to buy Outlook (at a reasonable price), but that's a story for another day.

Lo and behold, the 'free upgrade' was the privilege of RENTING the software at $10 month by converting to Office 365.

Click to expand...

I believe MS is going to lose customers with that attitude. Renting Office may be something that works for large businesses, universities, or even government agencies but certainly not for a single user or student. MS did release Office 15 (2013) for Windows and hopefully they will continue to support Mac Office. But if they don't, the Mac App store has a wide variety of applications which can be considered.

Also, the latest version of Libre Office looks pretty good - and it's free.