Office 365 is now on Mac App Store

[killion]

I'm wondering if it's worth uninstalling Office and reinstalling. If it uses the App Store update mechanism instead of Microsoft Autoupdate I would prefer it. Autoupdate presents a window almost every time a launch an Office application.

[ld00d]

My favorite is when autoupdate is done updating, it runs a check to see if anything needs to be updated, and then it reports to me that there's nothing to update.

[microtonal]

I just did that. Luckily I installed Office with Homebrew Cask, so removing was just

    brew cask uninstall microsoft-office

away. For me the app store version has many benefits:

- Microsoft sneaked OneDrive into the Office installer. I do not want OneDrive on my system

- All the applications are sandboxed per app store requirements.

- Indeed no more pesky Microsoft Autoupdate.

[npunt]

Also, the App Store version is going to be a bit more sandboxed.

I just replaced the regular with the App Store version and it went without a hitch. Just needed keychain access to Microsoft identity, and a login to Live.

[nicky0]

And half the time Autoupdate just wants to update itself!

[TMWNN]

Microsoft AutoUpdate used to pop up, but lately the updating has happened in the background and I haven't seen any window. Because of that I don't want to install the App Store version, because it seems like any obtrusive update (one that requires my attention) is more likely to occur in that venue.

[brianpgordon]

You can disable autoupdate and manually check for updates occasionally.

Also, any time an application is available from both inside and outside the App Store I always prefer the outside one. The sandboxing that the App Store imposes is a massive pain. There's also no reason in my mind that Apple deserves a fat slice of my license payment.

[ghshephard]

The million (10 million? 100 Million) dollar question that I haven't seen addressed yet (but I'm sure will be, if it hasn't already) - is what % cut Apple is getting from the subscription revenue.

[Scoundreller]

On this note, Apple's 30% flat tax is a poor decision.

I wonder how much of a hit Apple would take if the first $5000 per year per app was rebated.

There's a long tail of mild-moderately successful apps that provide value to some, but may not be economic to continue. With this system, devs could re-invest ~50% more funds into their early-stage product if they could.

It may pay for itself in future success and better products.

It's like a VC: You're small and a small amount of money means a lot to you. We'll give it to you in exchange for 30% of your future sales. The system works.

Netflix does it. AWS does it. GCloud does it.

[excalibur]

> Users can also purchase a subscription for Office 365 from within the apps, so they can get up and running instantly.

This would tend to suggest that Apple isn't getting a cut. Normally when they take one, it's on the basis of funds being transferred via their store, which doesn't appear to be the case here. But this is a massive deal between two of the ecosystem's biggest fish, and I'm sure an arrangement has been made to give Apple a piece of the pie somehow.

[paxys]

These apps have already been on the iOS App Store for a while, and you can purchase a subscription in-app, so I don't think this will be any different.

[freehunter]

Does Apple let developers negotiate their fee? I thought it was a flat 30% for the first year and 15% after that?

[andyfleming]

More specifically, I wonder if this is an intentional move to try to regain back some market share by showing that this is where software publishers are and should be selling.

[mark_l_watson]

There are some services that are so worth the money that I am happy to pay for: Office 365, Dropbox, and GSuite.

I am as much of a cheapskate as the next guy, but it makes sense to pay for services that help get work done and/or make life easier.

I am curious if Microsoft is paying Apple a 30% cut, or if they got a better deal.

[taftster]

How many licenses of GSuite to you maintain? One license, $5 / month. Seems reasonable.

I have six family members. $360 / year for GSuite, that's untenable to me.

[jackdh]

Is it really worth paying for Dropbox when you already have cloud storage bundled in with Office 365 (one drive) and GSuit (GDrive?)

[npunt]

Big move. I see this potentially as groundwork for the eventual integration of Mac and iOS App Stores, which you have to imagine is something Apple wants in the years ahead as platforms converge on common software stack and UX. It's also a signal that the App Store team may now be willing to do the deals necessary to attract MacOS apps back toward this larger strategic initiative (vs just trying to maximize revenue).

From Microsoft's perspective, now that Windows is sidelined, Office is their primary consumer platform and that means UX outweighs any strategic tax of trying to make the Windows version better.

Have you tried to download Office from their website? It's a horrible, braindead experience. You have to log in to your Live account, then go to a particular page to manage your existing Office installs that is super confusing. Coupled with the poor autoupdate UX on Mac [1], and it's almost like Microsoft doesn't want you to have Office on Mac.

I think the issue finally reached a breaking point there and they shifted to UX > control. This is a positive shift for them, since being on the App Store means features ship faster and users see value in their Office subscription. Aside from update UX this is obviously a way to bump their Mac Office numbers. Seems like a good play from both Apple & Microsoft's perspective.

[1] Right now Microsoft's autoupdate UX is pretty terrible at keeping things up to date. When I visit my parents, they're almost always several versions behind, and as another commenter pointed out, a decent part of that is the autoupdate needing to update itself. They have automated updates but its hard to trust that process won't result in issues when documents are open, and it presents a lot of cognitive load to users on top of the OS & App Store updates.

[zapzupnz]

> which you have to imagine is something Apple wants in the years ahead as platforms converge on common software stack and UX

I don't think we have to imagine that. Apple's been against that sort of thing for a long time, and I don't see that changing any time soon. They don't target the lowest common denominator.

I suppose that the Marzipan project, of iOS frameworks on macOS, should prove me wrong but I still don't think so. The few apps that Apple has given us are ... kinda bad. Their non-nativeness screams out: they don't respond properly to gestures, many macOS Services don't work in them, and the user interfaces are laggy.

Yes, I suppose things will change with the next version of macOS, but there's no real way to avoid the fact that UIKit on macOS doesn't make proper macOS apps --- and developers will have to decide what matters more; time to market or customer satisfaction.

I'm fairly sure Marzipan is a stopgap, not a platform unto itself. Get your iOS apps running on macOS, and slowly move them to native macOS paradigms.

I'm actually hoping that things like Office 365, Lightroom CC (and perhaps the other Adobe apps), BBEdit, etc. help developers see the potential of proper macOS apps (I'll take these big developers' emulations of Cocoa over UIKit-on-macOS any day), and smaller developers will follow suit.

(And if their code is MVC-compliant in the Cocoa way, that should't be too big an issue; you can mix and match views and controllers from AppKit and UIKit!)

> Have you tried to download Office from their website?

If you have an Office 365 account, all you need to do is go to office.com, sign in, and there's a big friendly "Install Office" button right there. But I do generally agree that there is too much friction getting this "must-have" piece of software; I don't care for Office much, but denying its influence and widespread usage is a task best relegated to those who think everybody should write in LaTeX.

[fxfan]

> Now that Windows is sidelined

Only available on 83% of Desktops worldwide. hmm..

[freehunter]

Is this the mobile version of the apps, a wrapper around the web version of the apps, or actual full-fledged desktop Office?

[Tomte]

Desktop Office. Microsoft has been offering a "real office" on Mac for many, many years now. The news is not that Office is on Mac, it's that it is distributed through the App Store.

[misterbwong]

PSA: iTunes gift cards can usually be had for a discount (generally 15%, maybe more) so you can save some $ with this move.

[swarnie_]

Are you saying you can buy $100 iTunes gift cards for $85 dollars? That's kinda sketchy....

[deca6cda37d0]

This very good for Mac admins of any kind of organisation that uses MDM. Finally just push those apps to the users from the server. If Adobe Creative Cloud could be downloaded from the Mac App Store it would be perfect.

Now I use homebrew to install lots of software and fonts internally.

[walterbell]

Can you pay to use the app for only one or two months? Or does it requiring subscribing and cancelling?

[ixxivvix]

You have to subscribe and then unsubscribe manually. Apparently the Mac App Store version only offers yearly subscriptions, but the iOS version still offers monthly options so you can use your phone if you personally don’t want to pay through Microsoft’s store

[tomnipotent]

Office 365 offers month-to-month or annual subscriptions.

[thought_alarm]

You have to purchase a subscription, but you can cancel at any time.

If you purchase an in-app subscription through the App Store with your Apple ID, the only option is a yearly subscription.

If you purchase a subscription directly from Microsoft's website, you can purchase either a yearly or monthly subscription.

The yearly subscription costs the same in both cases, and is cheaper unless you only want to use the app for a few months.

[xattt]

Some universities offer basic Office 365 (Word, PP, Excel) when you are a registered student.

[nvr219]

you can get a trial without paying anything

[intopieces]

Very pleased to be able to download just Microsoft Word from the store. It does seem snappier than the previous version. Sidenote, I use MS Word for one thing only, and that's Chinese homework. Are there any other word processors that do Pinyin well? I'll pay.

[pkamb]

Is it sandboxed?

[saagarjha]

Apparently, though it seems to have been granted quite a few exceptions:

  $ codesign -d --entitlements - /Applications/Microsoft\ Word.app/
  Executable=/Applications/Microsoft Word.app/Contents/MacOS/Microsoft Word
  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
  <plist version="1.0">
  <dict>
  	<key>com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.developer.aps-environment</key>
  	<string>production</string>
  	<key>com.apple.security.assets.pictures.read-only</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.sbpl</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>(allow file-read* file-write*
  
  
  
  
  
       (require-all (vnode-type REGULAR-FILE) (regex #"(^|/)~\$[^/]+$"))
  
  
  
     )</string>
  		<string>(deny file-write*
       (subpath (string-append (param "_HOME") "/Library/Application Scripts"))
       (subpath (string-append (param "_HOME") "/Library/LaunchAgents"))
      )</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.app-sandbox</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>keychain-access-groups</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>UBF8T346G9.*</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.apple-events</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>com.microsoft.outlook</string>
  		<string>com.microsoft.lync</string>
  		<string>com.microsoft.skypeforbusiness</string>
  		<string>com.filemaker.client.pro12</string>
  		<string>com.thomsonresearchsoft.endnote</string>
  		<string>com.dessci.mathtype</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.assets.movies.read-only</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.automation.apple-events</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.shared-preference.read-write</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>com.microsoft.autoupdate2</string>
  		<string>com.microsoft.office</string>
  		<string>com.microsoft.shared</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.application-groups</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>UBF8T346G9.Office</string>
  		<string>UBF8T346G9.ms</string>
  		<string>UBF8T346G9.OfficeOsfWebHost</string>
  		<string>UBF8T346G9.OfficeOneDriveSyncIntegration</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.scripting-targets</key>
  	<dict>
  		<key>com.apple.mail</key>
  		<array>
  			<string>com.apple.mail.compose</string>
  		</array>
  	</dict>
  	<key>com.apple.security.print</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.application-identifier</key>
  	<string>UBF8T346G9.com.microsoft.Word</string>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.home-relative-path.read-only</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.mach-lookup.global-name</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.port</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.shared-preference.read-only</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>com.ThomsonResearchSoft.EndNote</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.temporary-exception.files.absolute-path.read-only</key>
  	<array>
  		<string>/Library/Preferences/com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.plist</string>
  		<string>/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/</string>
  	</array>
  	<key>com.apple.security.files.bookmarks.app-scope</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.developer.team-identifier</key>
  	<string>UBF8T346G9</string>
  	<key>com.apple.security.network.client</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.personal-information.addressbook</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.assets.music.read-only</key>
  	<true/>
  	<key>com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory</key>
  	<true/>
  </dict>
  </plist>

[abrowne]

My question exactly: did MS change Office to get in the Mac App Store rules or did Apple change the MAS rules to get Office in?

[willio58]

What did office do before that would have required a non-sandboxed implementation? One pro-sandboxing point for office would be not allowing any sort of auto-updates if the user doesn't want them (and no repeated bugging of users about it).

[dstroot]

I uninstalled and then used homebrew and mas to install. Now I think 100% of my software is installed via homebrew. Nice!

[fock]

Just after some random outage in Europe yesterday. Wonder why this get's up the front page today...

[voxl_]

You spelled "Windows" wrong.

Why poor? Why post something like this without an explanation? Does it make you feel good?

Maybe you didn't know that Mac has had office for more than a decade.

[tr33house]

Big question is, when is it coming to Linux

[krembo]

Office was available for Mac for many years. The news here is that Office is now in the Mac App Store, not that big of a news. Anyhow, worth noting that the Mac versions of Office are no near to the Windows versions. They are thin clients with only a portion of the win capabilities, and those which exists are buggy, to say the least.

If I had a Mac, I would go to G Suite, which gives better capabilities for 99.9% of the users, and if I was on the .1% I would go and buy a PC.

* BTW- Wine 4 was released this week, and they also don't support any of the O365 apps, especially not their 64bit versions.

[rgovostes]

> The news here is that Office is now in the Mac App Store, not that big of a news.

It is bigger news than you might think. The Mac App Store has resoundingly failed to attract most "premium" Mac apps. Skype? No. Spotify? No. Chrome? No. Photoshop? No. VMware? No. Steam? No. Minecraft? No. Dropbox? No. Sketch? Left.

The redesigned App Store app was the first signal in years that Apple was starting to take it seriously again, and now they've brought one of the most popular pieces of software to the store. That's a big move.

[wvenable]

Not only has office been available on the Mac for many years, it started on the Mac.

[voxl_]

If you're so vested into microsoft's products you should stay on windows. There's always going to be that one thing you can't do for people like you, so why bother? For the rest of the world, office for mac has been amazing, and works perfectly. The people who I got on mac (around 4, I believe) are pretty heavy Office users, and they haven't complained once. They have, however, actually said to me that they're shocked by the difference between what they're told about mac and how it actually is, and they quite literally thanked me that I showed them mac. Office for mac is perfect for 99.9% of users. You can always bootcamp, but like I said, if you really need to use all those obscure features you know from windows, then yeah, stay on windows.

[CPLX]

Not sure what you're talking about. I've been using Office on OSX since it's been a thing and it's always been pretty much equivalent. Especially recently.

[CephalopodMD]

It's not a thin client though...

[tphan]

I use both Office for Mac and Windows all the time and Office for Mac is pretty reliable IMO. They pretty much have feature parity. Which features are you missing?

[cududa]

Upon reading your comment I was curious why it was so downvoted. So many reasons.. for me it was the bit about Office on Mac being a “thin client”. Dude. No.