Office on iPad Pro

by jltuv

Posted on November 1, 2018

7

When is full office coming to iPad Pro? If it can handle photoshop then office should be a piece of cake. So what’s the deal? Is Microsoft sleeping on this?

Comments (8)

8 responses to “Office on iPad Pro”

  1. rob_segal

    That is a lot of code to transition to a new development platform. I imagine that is a substantial effort. It may be better for Microsoft to keep adding features to their IOS apps than try to port full Office to iPad.

    3 years ago
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    • jimchamplin

      In reply to rob_segal:

      Adobe seems to disagree with that methodology.

      3 years ago
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    • wright_is

      In reply to rob_segal:

      The other problem is a lot of that legacy code is in Assembler. That was one of the reasons that it took so long for Office for Mac to transition to an Intel based codebase. A lot of the VBA and macro code, and functions, especially in Excel, were written in PowerPC assembler on the Mac and vast swathes of it had to be re-written for Intel.

      I'm guessing it is the same on Windows, that a lot of the code is in assembler, that is a lot of work to convert to a new architecture.

      This is probably one of the reasons why UWP is/was also taking so long.

      It makes much more sense to re-write it with managed code than to try and convert it, but it also means that it comes across to new platforms piecemeal. So that basic formatting will get there quickly, but full automation, VBA etc. will take a very long time to appear.

      I don't know what Adobe have done, but given the lethargic mess of legacy ridden code that was Photoshop, I would assume that, although they are claiming it is fully featured, they actually have re-written it for iOS, again, I doubt the devs had waded through 30 years of assembler subroutines and ported them to ARM - does Apple even allow direct assembler in their code for iOS? I think probably not.

      3 years ago
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  2. jltuv

    I think office on the iPad Pro should be just as good as office on PC or any iPad that uses the pencil:

    3 years ago
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  3. PeterC

    MS will look at the potential for 365 subscriptions. If it increases 365 revenue then they'll do it. I think if they don't do it, it really says more about the crisis of confidence within MS about hardware (and their ambitions versus reality).


    In a world where MS have walked away from "volume 1st party hardware" as a business they cant afford not to look at the ipad pro channel seriously, as with all other hardware vendors opportunities too. Pixel slate included.


    If they want to protect Surface/Windows business offerings then that would be a total loopy arsed 180 degree about turn to the recent years retention strategy, and simply wouldn't make sense. Windows is demoted and treated as such - surface is a great outwardly looking design and innovation hub. I would love Panos to be properly funded to compete against apple and the like - but MS wont fund such volume hardware investments again - they don't want anymore WIN 8 and Surface RT financial write downs.


    Ms have to deploy full office to the ipad pro, madness not to.

    3 years ago
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  4. Polycrastinator

    Mouse support? I'm not sure I'd want to use full Office without it. The mobile apps are, IMO, fine and in some cases (Outlook!) superior.

    3 years ago
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    • PeterC

      In reply to Polycrastinator:

      From what I understand - the ipad itself is the trackpad and stylus pad when connected to an external monitor. I assume theres maybe a "usb-c dongle" forthcoming that maybe enables keyboard and external monitor connection. I may well be wrong but that's my understanding.

      3 years ago
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