I keep reading about this CloudOn app that allows you to use Microsoft Office on an iPad. I don’t understand the fuss. Are people so prohibitively attached to one software solution that it clouds (excuse the pun) judgement?
Of course I lied when I said I don’t understand the fuss. I do. It’s the question I am most often asked about the iPad: “does it have Microsoft Office on it?” I think perhaps it’s most often asked by people who also think that the iPad will be a replacement for a desktop machine (or even laptop). It isn’t. It’s a supplemental device (albeit very powerful and getting better all the time). But it does very much depend on what you want to do/create...
For example if all you use Word for is to write fairly simple documents and maybe put in the occasional picture then you don’t actually need Word at all (on an iPad, laptop, desktop or anywhere). You just need a simple word processor. I use Pages on my iPad mainly because it integrates well with my workflow on my Mac, but there are other word processor apps that work just as well and that cost less. Try some out. Ditto presentation software. Actually presentation software is one of the most abused pieces of equipment ever invented and although it is very rare that I would use Keynote on my iPad to actually create a presentation I do wonder if the rather strict limitations of the app could be seen as a positive. No more wacky flying text or embarrassing transitions. Imagine it! Bliss!
And spreadsheets? I admit I do not understand Excel. I find it the most opaque piece of software imaginable, but I appreciate that it is not really created for people like me (people who like pictures). I know that for people who see data and numbers as Very Exciting Things, Excel is the best thing since buttered sliced toast. But really, even I can see that an iPad is not something you would want to be using to create or to look at a large spreadsheet full of complex, erm, Things (you can see what a fine technical grasp I have of this). Anyway, I have found that 90% of the spreadsheets I am sent open and look fine in Numbers on the iPad. Actually 90% of spreadsheets I am sent aren’t really spreadsheets at all, they are just tables of information that require no data interrogation and would consequently work just as well for the end user as a PDF.
Having recently spent over two weeks away from home with my iPad as my only device I realised that for many things I just don’t need a powerful desktop machine or laptop. Admittedly I was, for most of that period technically on holiday, but nevertheless I could still write and publish blog posts. I could still send my photos to Flickr. I could still email my colleagues and friends and take part in interesting conversations about Christmas telly on Twitter. I could still write and edit documents for work. I could, and did, read copious amounts of books via my Kindle app and I kept up to date with the world (such as it is) via the Interwebs. I watched TV and movies in my sleepless dead of night thanks to iTunes and iPlayer amongst others. I could even have made and edited my own small videos if I had wanted to, but I didn’t think a video diary about daily trips to an Intensive Care Unit over the Christmas period would have made particularly compelling viewing.
So really of course this point about “does Microsoft Office work on an iPad” isn’t about Microsoft Office at all. It’s about those wider questions of what we actually need our technology for. It’s about those questions tied to what we need to create, to consume and to share. Only when we know the answers to those questions do we need to worry about what tools are best. And when we do ask and answer those questions I’ll bet you that nine times out of ten ‘Microsoft Office’ is not the answer.
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