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Microsoft releases Universal Office apps for Windows 10

by Mark Tyson on 5 February 2015, 10:45

Tags: Windows 10

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Microsoft has announced that its Universal Office apps for Windows 10 have officially arrived for testing out on PCs, laptops and tablets. The early build of the firm's productivity suite was demoed at its Windows 10 event a couple weeks back. Now Microsoft has made a trio of Office apps available from the Windows Store Beta within the Windows 10 Technical Preview, including Word, PowerPoint, and Excel.

Office for Windows 10 apps are designed and optimised to be touch-friendly and compatible with a multitude of screen sizes. The company stated that the cross-platform build of Office will also be introduced in a user preview on phones and small tablets in the coming weeks, with the mobile versions said to be further optimised for smaller displays.

The announcement comes shortly after Microsoft's launch of Office for Android and iOS. For those wondering about the availability of the other Office suite apps, Outlook and Calendar are expected to launch at a later date, whilst a universal version of OneNote already comes with Windows 10. Office 2016, the desktop version of the suite designed for a keyboard and mouse devotees will ship in H2 this year.

If you are interested in trying out the Windows 10 preview OS click here and sign up as a 'Windows Insider'. It's necessary if you plan to test out these touch friendly Universal Office apps right now.

HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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Posted by TheAnimus - Thu 05 Feb 2015 12:16
Gargh, they've taken design hints from Android.

Let's put the menu button in the hardest place to reach on your phone! It's so badly designed from a usability point of view, it might as well be an Apple product.
Posted by GuidoLS - Thu 05 Feb 2015 12:31
TheAnimus
Gargh, they've taken design hints from Android.

Let's put the menu button in the hardest place to reach on your phone! It's so badly designed from a usability point of view, it might as well be an Apple product.

Not intending to be that guy, but the release info pretty much excludes the word phone in the description… and fwiw, they work as described on both laptops and full sized PCs. Don't own, nor do I intend on owning, a new tablet capable or running W10 (or any other OS, for that matter), so can't comment on the touch capabilities.
Posted by AlexKitch - Thu 05 Feb 2015 12:48
This is something that's always bugged me about smartphones, too. Why put buttons and menus at the top of the screen - the single most difficult place to press when using one hand. It's completely illogical.
Posted by LSG501 - Thu 05 Feb 2015 12:58
Maybe it's me but I use 2 hands when I'm using my phone (one to hold, the other to work on screen)…. position really makes no difference to me personally.
Posted by TheAnimus - Thu 05 Feb 2015 13:13
GuidoLS
Not intending to be that guy, but the release info pretty much excludes the word phone in the description… and fwiw, they work as described on both laptops and full sized PCs. Don't own, nor do I intend on owning, a new tablet capable or running W10 (or any other OS, for that matter), so can't comment on the touch capabilities.
True, but they've got the screen shots.

These are apparently on the universal app stack, which is about sharing code, so you don't get such bad functionality chasms as we've seen before, and look at the concept screen shots.

That's what I'm upset about.

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