News - Office for iPad to arrive after it is made touch-friendly for Windows

[HEXUS]

Steve Ballmer revealed this news, and more, at a Gartner-sponsored event yesterday.

Read more.

[Platinum]

Does anyone even want a touch friendly office? great lets move it to a less usable UI just so people can look "cool" working on there tablet.

[sykobee]

Microsoft finally understand the concept that a device that is interacted with via touch, should have applications designed for touch first and foremost.

[crossy]

“Word, PowerPoint and Excel are all authoring tools,” said Ballmer. “They are optimized for use with keyboards and mice. The last time I checked, the iPad didn't have a paradigm for keyboard or mice. iPad will be picked up when we do what I would call not just a touch-enabled, but a touch-first user interface.

Dear Steve B, if lack of keyboard and pointing device are the only objections to Office on tablets then please can I have a copy for my Asus Transformer - since that has both a proper keyboard and a touchpad (and if that's not good enough then I've hooked up a mouse to it as well).

Joking aside, what's wrong with a Bluetooth keyboard? Leaves touch only for the menu selections which - so I was told - were ribbonised primarily to make Office more touch friendly in the first place.

And if iOS has "issues" with keyboard support then how about a version of Office for Android? I'm sure I've heard of folks that have connected Bluetooth keyboard and USB mouse to their Nexus 7's. Office for Android would be a great Trojan horse to get SkyDrive onto all those Google-Drive-using devices!

[kingpotnoodle]

“Word, PowerPoint and Excel are all authoring tools,” said Ballmer. “They are optimized for use with keyboards and mice. The last time I checked, the iPad didn't have a paradigm for keyboard or mice. iPad will be picked up when we do what I would call not just a touch-enabled, but a touch-first user interface.

Dear Steve B, if lack of keyboard and pointing device are the only objections to Office on tablets then please can I have a copy for my Asus Transformer - since that has both a proper keyboard and a touchpad (and if that's not good enough then I've hooked up a mouse to it as well).

Joking aside, what's wrong with a Bluetooth keyboard? Leaves touch only for the menu selections which - so I was told - were ribbonised primarily to make Office more touch friendly in the first place.

And if iOS has "issues" with keyboard support then how about a version of Office for Android? I'm sure I've heard of folks that have connected Bluetooth keyboard and USB mouse to their Nexus 7's. Office for Android would be a great Trojan horse to get SkyDrive onto all those Google-Drive-using devices!

There is already Office for Mac, so the coding job of Office for iPad might well be easier. Porting Office to Android is likely a non-starter. I also see a lot more people on the train *trying* to make their iPad a laptop (looks like a frustrating experience to me) than Android tablets, most of the Nexus 7s I see are just for watching/reading.

[crossy]

There is already Office for Mac, so the coding job of Office for iPad might well be easier. Porting Office to Android is likely a non-starter. I also see a lot more people on the train *trying* to make their iPad a laptop (looks like a frustrating experience to me) than Android tablets, most of the Nexus 7s I see are just for watching/reading.

Office Mobile for Android already exists (here) but for some reason it's locked to phones-only. (And you need an Office365 subscription).

And I realise that an MSOffice+iPad could be a pretty unpleasant experience - which is why I said Asus Transformer. After all that's close enough to a netbook to be a good stepping stone - even if the MSO app was effectively a beta.

How do they manage to do the Office install on RT - surely that one is "touch friendly" since they can't assume that everyone is going to run out and buy the keyboard/cover?