Category: Office for Windows 10

Microsoft has released an update to the various Office for Windows 10 apps today as they prepare the preview apps for wider distribution.  Word, Excel and PowerPoint all have received updated this morning, mostly focused on bug fixes and performance improvements.  If you are running the Office for Windows 10 preview app then you should go to the Windows Store beta in Windows 10 and get the updates.

The updates come with it widely expected that the next release of Windows 10 for Phone this week to contain the preview apps.  The last update to the Technical Preview not only did not have the new Office for Windows 10 apps but it actually killed off the existing Office hub for Windows Phone.  Hopefully that gets sorted this week.

Over the past few weeks I have been using a Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 tablet as part of my daily routine.  As I put in my post a few weeks ago, it has been refreshing to have so many apps available on the platform but I still have plenty of things about Android itself that I’m not fond of exactly.  I love Windows and Windows Phone and I can only hope that the app gap is closed a bit when it is released later this summer.

We know for sure that Microsoft is heavily focused on their own apps in Windows 10 for the PC, Tablet and Phone and in Android, we get a glimpse of just where they plan on going with their apps on these devices running the new OS.  Equally, we know that Microsoft is pushing developers and themselves hard to create universal apps so no matter which device you are using an app on, you get the same look, feel and features across all devices.  If you look at the Office suite of apps – Word, Excel and PowerPoint – then look at Outlook on Android, you have a much richer and decidedly more touch friendly experience than you do currently with Office 2013 on Windows 8.1 PCs and tablets..  As for Office on Windows Phone, I’ve said before and I’ll say it again that it is just about useless at this point. Even Microsoft acknowledges it is a frustrating experience.

The future of these apps however looks bright and all you have to do is go look at them on Android.

As part of the massive Windows 10 event today, Microsoft showed off for the first time Office for Windows 10, a completely universal and touch friendly version of Office that will be coming to your smartphone, tablet and PC.  It means that the Office experience, no matter which device you are using, will be the same, touch friendly and equally powerful.  Finally!