Microsoft Office Is Now Updated For M1 Macs (theverge.com) 61
Microsoft is rolling out an update today that brings native support for Apple's M1 chip to the Windows productivity suite. "The apps getting the updates are Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, and OneNote," reports The Verge. "Notably absent, however, is Teams." From the report: The updates are making the apps universal ones -- meaning these versions will run on both Intel and Apple Silicon Macs, so any upcoming updates or features will be coming at the same time for both platforms. [...] Office users who have automatic updates turned on should have the new versions sometime today, and anyone else can update it through the Mac App Store or Microsoft's AutoUpdate software (depending on if you downloaded Office through the App Store or directly from Microsoft). Outlook users will get not only native Apple Silicon support, but support for iCloud accounts as well, allowing them to sync their email, contacts, and calendars to the app if they use Apple's service to store them. Teams isn't included in today's rollout of updates, but Microsoft says they're working on it. No timeline is available, though.
Already ported to ARM (Score:2)
Not surprising that Microsoft was quick to release a port considering Office for ARM has already been released five times:
Windows RT, Windows on ARM, Windows Phone\Universal, Android and iOS.
What is there to really port... (Score:2)
Not surprising that Microsoft was quick to release a port considering Office for ARM has already been released five times
What is there to port really though?
It's mostly just a re-compilation of an existing Mac project in Xcode. Check out the Apple porting guide [apple.com].
I doubt Office was using much assembly or heavily hardware specific code... it was probably a re-compilation and testing effort more than anything.
Game I think would potentially have the hardest task, mostly productivity applications should involve v
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It's mostly just a re-compilation of an existing Mac project in Xcode. Check out the Apple porting guide [apple.com].
I doubt Office was using much assembly or heavily hardware specific code... it was probably a re-compilation and testing effort more than anything.
Game I think would potentially have the hardest task, mostly productivity applications should involve very little effort.
Believe it or not, I doubt that MS does most of the coding of office for mac on Xcode. ;-) Probably they use some sort of cross platform IDE.
Also, believe it or not, under the hood, Office has a lot of advanced code. Hardware assisted rendering comes to mind (for word and powerpoint), as well as SIMD/AVX instructions for math in excel (the venerable X87 math instructions were deprecated by intel and AMD a while ago, they are still there, mind you, but deprecated).
So, while I agree that porting offcie to ARM
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Believe it or not, I doubt that MS does most of the coding of office for mac on Xcode
I highly doubt they do not use Xcode for Mac development. Maybe not the UI, but product compilation for the Mac would use Xcode.
Office has a lot of advanced code. Hardware assisted rendering comes to mind
Sure but because they are on different platforms that would be through something like OpenGL or other acceleration libraries that were also cross-platform.
as well as SIMD/AVX instructions for math in excel
On the Mac that
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Believe it or not, I doubt that MS does most of the coding of office for mac on Xcode. ;-) Probably they use some sort of cross platform IDE.
Also, believe it or not, under the hood, Office has a lot of advanced code. Hardware assisted rendering comes to mind (for word and powerpoint), as well as SIMD/AVX instructions for math in excel (the venerable X87 math instructions were deprecated by intel and AMD a while ago, they are still there, mind you, but deprecated).
So, while I agree that porting offcie to ARM is harder than porting a AAA game to ARM, is not as easy as you make it sound.
Porting an AAA game to ARM would probably be harder. Game developers use engines and a gazillion of different libraries from various vendors, for physics, sky rendering, hair, audio etc etc etc etc. All of these need to be available for the new platforms. It's not like most of these games just conists of code written inhouse for the Mac, and using only the standard Mac APIs.
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Have you ever really looked at all the functionality available in Office? There are many, many features that are very complicated (e.g. OLE embedding - I am not sure that is still supported but just using as an example) that need to continue to work. Just testing that they still do is a major effort. And no, automated testing can't possibly cover everything. Many tests will be manual.
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What is there to port really though?
Knowing the answer to that question is probably why they were able to port it so quickly. In my experience porting to ARM usually is just an exercise in tracking down all of your binary dependencies that need to be reworked.
Since they've already done that for Windows ARM even if they were using assembly somewhere in Excel or hardware specific code, they've already rewritten all of those libraries, and have experience knowing every single dependency that had to be rewritten when doing the previous ports.
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Not surprising that Microsoft was quick to release a port considering Office for ARM has already been released five times
What is there to port really though?
It's mostly just a re-compilation of an existing Mac project in Xcode. Check out the Apple porting guide [apple.com].
I doubt Office was using much assembly or heavily hardware specific code... it was probably a re-compilation and testing effort more than anything.
Game I think would potentially have the hardest task, mostly productivity applications should involve very little effort.
That's extremely unlikely... While "oh, just recompile in Xcode" sounds like an easy task, there are several issues with it. Larger, complex products - like Office, many games etc, depends on a large selection of libraries and functionality provided by third parties. This might not be available for the new platform, or availabilitiy on a new platform might require upgrading to a new version - which might cause a lot of work, or new fees.
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Larger, complex products - like Office, many games etc, depends on a large selection of libraries and functionality provided by third parties.
That's typically true, but is it true of Microsoft applications? They own the OS. Are they really licensing in a bunch of libraries?
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I wouldn't minimize the testing effort required. Office is an extremely complicated product, probably much more so than any game - or really any other product anywhere (have you ever explored all the options available?). Without a doubt when compiling for a major new platform they go through the full non-regression tests that they have - including manual ones. This alone, for a major product like Office would take a considerable amount of time.
And if they find any issues, they need to fix them. During their
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Microsoft for a Long time, had a Mac Port of Office. Often the Mac Port is considered superior to the Windows Version. This never seemed to be a just a recompile port of the windows version, but a separate version designed for the Mac. I expect over time, they have joined a lot of code bases. Espectially as Office for the Web, for iOS and for Android came out too.
However in 2020 the actual processing needs for the Office suite is small. So I expect there is much, much less custom optimization going on
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But will MS port its Windows to the new ARM Macs?
Seems very portable (Score:2)
Re:Seems very portable (Score:4, Informative)
May I be the first to point out that it raises the question, rather than begging it.
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How is your neck holding out with such a mighty fedora?
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You bunt you. I'm fedora up with such trivia.
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.. why I can't get a native Office on Linux.
Because Mac users will pay for software. While Linux freeloaders don't have any money. Damn dirty hippies.
Personally I live linux, but I can't imagine wanting to pay to put MS crapware on it.
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Which begs the question why I can't get a native Office on Linux.
In all reality, the lack of control and integrated DRM. Microsoft doesn't just want people to use MS Office, it wants to make sure they get paid for it as well, and the locked down nature of the apple ecosystem makes that a lot easier than on a Linux system where the owner is in full control of everything that is installed.
Re:Seems very portable (Score:5, Informative)
Which begs the question why I can't get a native Office on Linux.
1.) Apple's global market share of desktop/laptop/workstation computers (end user computers as opposed to phones and tablets) is 9.54% versus linux's 2.35%* so, bigger (~4x) addressable market. **
2.) The average MacOS user tends to be more affluent than the average Linux User, so, more likelyhood of having money to pay for the SW.
No conspiracy theory needed.
* As per netmarketshare, for whatever that's worth
** If you want office for your phone and/or tablet, you have a striped down version from MS, no biggie.
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Are they?
With indie games that came out for all 3 OS's on a 'pay what you want'-kind of deal, it were the Linux people who payed the most.
Well, Windows has the bulk, so you (as a developer) will get an income. Mac users are in general more financially capable, and/or easier to con into paying for anything every time. But how many Macs have been sold to 'the poser'-type of person, with/without a financing plan etc.
In the group of people that use Linux willingly, I have the impression that there much more peo
Re: Seems very portable (Score:2)
Perhaps they have a habit of not paying for software. What's that saying again, a fool and his money are soon separated... :^)
Re:Seems very portable (Score:5, Informative)
Because Microsoft developed Office for the Mac a long time ago, and has kept it chugging along ever since. It's a separate product. It's not a recompilation of Office for Windows. It was also probably seen as a hedge against antitrust complaints.
I imagine maintaining two copies of office, has been enough of them. They have very little desire to add a third.
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They already have a third version. The web version. And they have the iOS and Android versions, so that's 5. Also the Windows ARM versions. So we're up to 6 now.
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Office 365 online works fine on Linux . . . well, it works about the same as on Windows in any case.
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I'll give a few reasons
1. Office has been ported to Mac OS X for a long, long time. (Indeed Word and Excel were originally created for the original Mac OS and later ported to Windows). Hence, Microsoft has experience, sunk costs and likely contractual guarantees to customers to continue to support the Mac.
2. Linux is less standardized - what Windowing API should they use? GTK? Qt? Code for X directly? I am sure they could pick, but no matter what choice they make, they will exclude part of their audience. (
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Visio and Project? (Score:3)
I would have loved Visio and Project on my Mac. Alternatives to Visio on MacOS are terrible (I am looking at you Yed).
And, while project management SW in MacOS is decent, Project is a staple in the corporate world in which I move.
So, in the end, I had word excel and powerpoint native on MacOS, while Visio and Project ran in a VM from the bootcamp partition with VirtualBox (until virtualbox+apple borked borked that functionality too).
Alas, the era of me using MacOS is comming to an end (Q12009- until my macmini 2018 stops getting security patches in MacOS), so, no biggie.
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I've used a lot of visio like tools, and aside from special microsoft tools like network mapping and AD mapping, I would rank visio near the bottom.
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A list of those that run on Linux would be nice because I can't find anything that even comes close.
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Have you tried Wine?
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Visio + Wine = dissatisfaction for me.
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I don't get what you were trying to do when bootcamp does not need virtualbox to run an alt/os...
Besides, parallels is good enough to do what you want, or virtualbox on the same partition as macos is just fine...
The bootcamp partition was there for things that do not go along well with virtualization (mostly games to keep me entertained in hotel rooms and airports). Then, since I had a bootcamp partition, it seemed wastefull to make another windows install in a VM just for visio and Project, and Hedex (is a work thing, google it).
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I would have loved Visio and Project on my Mac. Alternatives to Visio on MacOS are terrible (I am looking at you Yed).
And, while project management SW in MacOS is decent, Project is a staple in the corporate world in which I move.
So, in the end, I had word excel and powerpoint native on MacOS, while Visio and Project ran in a VM from the bootcamp partition with VirtualBox (until virtualbox+apple borked borked that functionality too).
Alas, the era of me using MacOS is comming to an end (Q12009- until my macmini 2018 stops getting security patches in MacOS), so, no biggie.
Tried OmniGraffle [omnigroup.com]? I've used it for a couple of years, and it works great for me - although I'm not the most advanced user. I mostly use it for flowcharts, orgcharts and software architecture diagrams.
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Tried OmniGraffle [omnigroup.com]? I've used it for a couple of years, and it works great for me - although I'm not the most advanced user. I mostly use it for flowcharts, orgcharts and software architecture diagrams.
Thanks for the sugestion.
I use visio for network diagrams (DCN + storage and compute), system connection diagrams (think GSM, WCDMA, 3GGP R8 and above), so, on the surface, omnigraffle does not seem to be a good fit.
VBA macros? (Score:2)
What about one of the big PPC and then Intel porting problems: VBA macros?
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What about one of the big PPC and then Intel porting problems: VBA macros?
Good god, why isn't that dead yet?
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Aside from COM-encumbered .NET interop, there isn't any other way to automate office and lots of business have invested a lot in macros, unfortunately.
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requiring spending on expensive connectivity to load.
I'm sure Microsoft is concerned with the 8 people on earth for whom 1KB OAuth transaction is prohibitively expensive.
"Windows Productivity Suite"? (Score:2)
Is it really accurate to use that term for it when it has been available for Macintosh for thirty years now?
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Is it really accurate to use that term for it when it has been available for Macintosh for thirty years now?
Yes and no.
The thing available for Macs for 30 years now has been a subset of the things available on the full blown "Windows Productivity Suite".
Sometimes, the mac thing trailed the office thing by a few years.
Other times, some components are missing. Visio, Project and Publisher come to mind.
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The thing available for Macs for 30 years now has been a subset of the things available on the full blown "Windows Productivity Suite". Sometimes, the mac thing trailed the office thing by a few years.
Other times, some components are missing. Visio, Project and Publisher come to mind.
Right, the point he is making is they ported their Mac Productivity Suite to the M1, not their Windows Productivity Suite which, as you pointed out, has a different feature set with some components not even existing.
Odd they left out Teams (Score:2)
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LibreOffice? (Score:2)
I stopped using MS Office immediately after I suddenly had to log in to see my recently edited documents list. Brrr that scared me. I hope LibreOffice will follow MS soon in porting its suite to the M1.