Ask Paul: February 21 (Premium)

Happy Friday! There are some great questions from readers this week about Windows 10X, the new Office app, and much more.
Office app vs. Office apps
ggolcher asks:

Short and simple from me this time: with a unified Office app being released for mobile phones, where does that leave the individual apps?

JustMe likewise asks:

With the release of Microsoft's unified Office app, will the individual apps eventually just disappear?

My original answer started off like this:

“Microsoft says that the individual apps will continue forward, and I think that makes sense: It seems like the single Office app is the perfect solution for most on phones whereas the individual apps would make more sense (again, for most) on tablets. I would imagine there’s no extra work on Microsoft’s part to maintain the standalone apps, plus some on phone may prefer those too.”

But. Microsoft revealed that this new Office mobile app would come to tablets eventually, too. And if you read their post, it says that they have “combined” Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (and some other Office experiences like Lens and Sticky Notes) into a single app. It doesn’t say that these are subsets of the full standalone app experiences.

So…

Maybe not so short and sweet: if they're different, how do the features of the unified Office app in Word mode, for example, compare to the individual Word app?

This is an interesting thing to compare because it can give us an idea whether the new unified app provides all of the functionality of the standalone apps. And if it does, that suggests that Microsoft will eventually kill off the standalone apps.

Looking at Word vs. Office, the basic UI is the same: Same look and feel and same four icons at the top, plus Back and the More menu. And that more Menu offers the same commands---Save, Save As, History, and Print---in both apps. Well, Word has a Settings command, too, but that’s handled elsewhere in Office.

Both apps feature the same editing experience, with the same toolbar buttons (Bold, Italics, etc.). One minor difference is that the top toolbar disappears in Word when you’re editing, but it’s still visible in Office. That could be a phone difference or whatever (I’m looking at two different devices side-by-side.)

The only other difference I can spot is that Word lets you sign-up for the Office Insider program and presumably access new features more quickly. But that could change, and whether Word (and the other apps) do go away, it would makes sense to add Insider access to Office.

Microsoft has provided virtually no guidance here (big surprise) and so I'm hoping you can help.

Yep. In this case, I kind of get it, and I feel like there will be some backlash if/when they remove the standalone apps. Plus, it’s possible that Excel and/or PowerPoint have differences. I have to think the plan is to eliminate the differences, move the Office app forward with new features, and eventually d...