back to article Behold: The touchy-feely future of Office on Windows 10 fondleslabs

An early build of Microsoft Office's universal apps, designed for tablets and smartphones, is now available for those running the Windows 10 technical preview. “In the coming weeks, we’ll open up our preview for the same apps on phones and tablets running Windows 10,” says Office general manager Julia White, implying Windows 8 …

  1. Dazed and Confused
    FAIL

    It won't bloody help

    I'm typing this on a 32" monitor and its at least 18" further away than the end of my fingers.

    1. cambsukguy

      Re: It won't bloody help

      Obviously, since it is for tablet use and perhaps occasionally on a laptop when dabbing the screen is sometimes just easier than moving the pointer and clicking.

      As the article intimates - it is always better for real text input and efficient work to use the mouse and keyboard - at least for now.

      1. Robert Helpmann??
        Childcatcher

        Re: It won't bloody help

        As the article intimates - it is always better for real text input and efficient work to use the mouse and keyboard - at least for now.

        It's more efficient to use the mouse as little as possible as moving hands from keyboard to elsewhere slows you down.

        1. Dazed and Confused
          Happy

          Re: It won't bloody help

          > It's more efficient to use the mouse as little as possible as moving hands from keyboard to elsewhere slows you down.

          :-)

          And I complained about HP's abandonment of the IFS keyboard to switch to the PC keyboard layout as the Esc key is so damn far away and I used it all the time.

  2. 45RPM Silver badge

    It looks more or less exactly like Office for iOS, or Office for Android. Does this mean that, up to now, the best tablets for business have been the tablets not running Windows? Are Windows tablets going to catch up with the competition at last?

    *Ducks*

    1. cambsukguy

      As has been mentioned myriad times previously, those people with Surfaces and transformer type Windows tablets generally have a keyboard/trackpad to hand.

      iPad user and many Android tablet users do not have the input devices to hand.

      Not to mention the larger tablet user base that IOS and Android have.

      As a surface user I would use the keyboard in almost every single case except where I literally was unable to place the device anywhere, including my lap.

      The desktop apps also support touch, in that the items can be set further apart etc. to help with the fat finger problem.

      It will still be nice to have the touch version but it won't get used much.

      Very useful for the folks having the tiny units at 8 inches though,

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        iPad user and many Android tablet users do not have the input devices to hand.

        More like, iPad and Android users aren't required to have a keyboard for their tablets to be useful.

        As a surface user I would use the keyboard in almost every single case except where I literally was unable to place the device anywhere, including my lap.

        Same here. Now I have either a crap tablet that requires a keyboard, or a crap laptop with a poor keyboard and that I can't balance on my lap

      2. Richard Plinston

        > those people with Surfaces and transformer type Windows tablets generally have a keyboard/trackpad to hand.

        The keyboard on Surface is an extra cost option, though it seems to be required to use the device effectively. This keeps the apparent price down while increasing the actual price..

        > iPad user and many Android tablet users do not have the input devices to hand.

        There are many more options, for iPad especially, because they can have bluetooth keyboards and keyboard/covers. These are also less restrictive, Surface keyboards must be connected in landscape while bluetooth allows portrait mode or disconnected use: eg tablet on aircraft table and keyboard on lap.

        1. dogged
          Stop

          > There are many more options, for iPad especially, because they can have bluetooth keyboards and keyboard/covers. These are also less restrictive, Surface keyboards must be connected in landscape while bluetooth allows portrait mode or disconnected use: eg tablet on aircraft table and keyboard on lap.

          Because none of the Surfaces have Bluetooth or can connect to a wireless keyboard except for all of them.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Touchy feely does not equal productive

    Sadly, the revamps of Office to accommodate touchy-feely operation have had a substantially negative impact on intensive users of Office. Far more finger pokes or mouse movements and clicks are required to perform simple (and frequent) operations.

    In the past, in Word, you could type CTRL+F and immediately continue with a search string then ht return. Now you type CTRL+F or click on Find, then you have to manually click on the search box in the navigation filed before typing the search string. Little irritations, but they (along with hunting for commands in the ribbon) all add up to make recent versions of Office less efficient to use.

    There's a real trade-off between ease of use at first encounter (or by infrequent users) and ease of use for experienced users. MS seem to have optimised the former to the detriment of the latter.

    1. Mike Dimmick

      Re: Touchy feely does not equal productive

      That's simply an issue of not putting the focus in the navigation field. It's a bug. Report it.

  4. Mike Dimmick

    Windows 8 does not have the new APIs

    I don't expect this version of Office to come to Windows 8, because I expect that there will have been substantial extensions to Windows Runtime in order to support Office's functionality. This is one reason why Windows 10 will be a free upgrade.

    If Windows Runtime 8.1 had APIs that could support all of Office's functionality, I would have expected Microsoft to have already released Office for Modern Windows, parallel with the iOS version.

    1. Paul Shirley

      Re: Windows 8 does not have the new APIs

      It's another signal that 8.1 is going to join 8.0 in 'essential updates only' mode shortly after 10 ships. MS really want to forget Win8.x ever existed and this is just deliberate neglect.

      They intend neglecting it to death, starved of updates, starved of killer apps.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Create rich content on a laptop or hybrid, saving to One Drive. Consume content on phone/tablet. Seems a simple concept.

  6. Fenton

    Flat look and feel

    If there is one thing I hate about Modern Windows is this horrid flat look on everything in horrid primary colours.

    Please bring back some eye candy. I know they've taken it all out to run on low powered cpus, but some of us still use powerful desktops with high GFX cards.

    1. ParaHandy

      Re: Flat look and feel

      Completely agree. Have got somewhat used to Windows 8 with classic shell but it is just so ugly. Windows kindergarden edition. Skeumorphism was used for many years for a reason. You could turn aero on or off in Windows 7. It should still be an option for those who want it. Like us. Thankfully KDE4 is just lovely to look at and I can't see Windows ugliness when I'm playing games full screen.

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