Excel for Windows Phone 8.1

[WPCentral Question]

Does anyone have an idea if/when Microsoft Plans to provide an update for Excel for Windows Phone (I have OS 8.1 on my Lumia 928). The app is barely functional and doesn't even work with freeze panes. It really bothers me that on Android and iOS I can find a multitude of 3rd party apps that way outperform the Microsoft Excel app on Microsoft's flagship mobile phone OS (unfortunately they are only available at Google Play or via Apple's Apps Store)!!!! It is very frustrating and in my opinion is a very poor reflection on Microsoft. Please don't get me wrong, I love the Windows Phone 8.1 OS - more than iOS8 or Android 4.4. But, if Microsoft can't put the Smart in its own mobile office smart phone apps I will end up leaving this platform and either return to Android or switch to iOS!

 

[unknow91]

They will! The problem is when! But something tells me (*cough* Windows Weekly *cough*) that the touch-first version of Office will come with Threshold

 

[N_LaRUE]

The version of Excel on WP is only meant for reviewing and small edits. It isn't designed for major work. That goes for the whole Office suite on WP.

They do plan to release newer version of Office that they have on iPad for WP and Android. When this is going to happen we can only assume with Windows 9. Whether it gets any better on WP is questionable though.

 

[dsjtech]

Microsoft should be setting the trend for Office on Mobile - especially on its own platform. That Excel on WP is meant for reviewing and small edits doesn't matter to me. I am a business user and even if I am reviewing a spreadsheet on my phone I expect, at minimum, for freeze panes to work so that I don't have to scroll back to the top of a spreadsheet that I am reviewing to confirm the column headers. This is basic functionality that is in many 3rd party iOS and Android apps. Get with it Microsoft or you are going to loose many users that you have recently won over from Android!! Especially those of us who use our phones for both business and personal purposes.

 

[N_LaRUE]

Microsoft should be setting the trend for Office on Mobile - especially on its own platform. That Excel on WP is meant for reviewing and small edits doesn't matter to me. I am a business user and even if I am reviewing a spreadsheet on my phone I expect, at minimum, for freeze panes to work so that I don't have to scroll back to the top of a spreadsheet that I am reviewing to confirm the column headers. This is basic functionality that is in many 3rd party iOS and Android apps. Get with it Microsoft or you are going to loose many users that you have recently won over from Android!! Especially those of us who use our phones for both business and personal purposes.

Freeze panes doesn't work on Office Online. It's only works if you opened it with Excel, freeze panes and save it to OneDrive and then open it. So saying it's a basic function is not something that's obvious to MS.

Though I haven't tried that you can give that a go and see if it works for the mobile Office too.

Keep in mind, for whatever reason, WP was not originally setup with the business user in mind, business was secondary as was enterprise. I know that sounds absurd but that's the truth. WP was a designed as a consumer device to battle against Apple. Just look at the way WP handles email and all your answers are there.

 

[dsjtech]

Makes sense. I guess Microsoft is more interested in its business users moving to more business friendly mobile phone solutions. Likely the reason I will move from a phone OS that I like (WP8.1) to iOS 8 when my contract comes up for renewal.

 

[Chris Reynolds1]

N_LaRue says:

"Keep in mind, for whatever reason, WP was not originally setup with the business user in mind, business was secondary as was enterprise. I know that sounds absurd but that's the truth. WP was a designed as a consumer device to battle against Apple. Just look at the way WP handles email and all your answers are there. "

Wish I'd have known that before I got one. I'm finding Excel on my phone to be next to useless. I can't copy down formulae. If I open a sheet from Excel 2007 (xlsx) it's not modfiable, if I save it as a new file then open I still cannot modify the new file! If I do a non integer calculation the result comes up as #######, i.e. the number is too big to display, yet there is no format for number resolution (and I've yet to figure out how to expand a column width).

The primary reason I got a 930 was to be able to use my spreadsheets on site (I'm an engineer), now I find I can't.

It's still a good phone, but it was the spreadsheets that were the deciding factor in buying it. Without that office feature I may as well have got a Samsung or an iPhone.

 

[dsjtech]

Re: Excel for Windows Phone 8.1 - ???Microsoft are you reading these Posts???

N_LaRue, I do agree that it is obvious that the primary target for Microsoft was consumer users versus business users. Where they missed the boat was that they forgot that a good number of consumer users, like both of us, are business users who have dual purpose phones for work and entertainment - hence the whole BYOD movement and the importance of MDM in the enterprise. The frustrating thing is that Microsoft is uniquely poised in the realm of enterprise systems and has a much greater advantage than Apple or Google. They just are not leveraging their position or building on their strengths - at least with respect to Office on mobile platforms. This is very disappointing. That being said, I still prefer the Windows 8.1 OS over Android's Kit Kat or Lollipop and Apple's iOS8. Windows phone should have the most feature rich and intuitive functioning MS Office (especially Excel) solution of all mobile phone platforms - period. Microsoft doesn't have to sacrifice their appeal to consumer users to accomplish this. In fact it may drive more to the platform.