There’s someone who’s kicking sand out of the Retina display sandbox, and that company appears to be Microsoft. Even though Microsoft boasted that Office for Mac is ready for OS X Mountain Lion, Macworld is reporting that users with Retina-display MacBook Pros are describing a less-than-stellar experience when using Office for Mac on one of these machine.
This isn’t a surprise, as about the only current Mac feature that Office for Mac has is Gatekeeper, and I think it’s largely more to keep the average user having a panic attack that Office isn’t working with Gatekeeper turned on. Lack of other features include iCloud support (no surprise), auto saving, versions (though there is a workaround) and full-screen support — the last three being Lion features that the Office for Mac team was supposedly working on.
In the blog, an Office for Mac team member claimed that Outlook does support Retina display. “Outlook for Mac 2011 already supports Retina Display and the remaining apps will have the same viewing quality as on any non-Retina device. Unfortunately at this time, we cannot comment on any future updates regarding supporting Retina on Word, Excel or PowerPoint,” the person said.
The same isn’t holding true for other software. Adobe’s Creative Suite also lacks Retina display support, but told Macworld in an email that it would be coming later this year, and the same goes for AutoCAD. But the support is coming, as Photoshop and AutoCAD were demoed during the MacBook Pro with Retina Display announcement.
The user base for Office for Mac that own Retina-display MacBook Pros might not be big enough to justify adding the support right now. As more Retina-display machines are adopted in the business industry, it might eventually come back to that and other Lion and Mountain Lion features that it’s neglected. But, I suspect that given Microsoft’s laissez-faire attitude toward the Office for Mac suite, those features might come some time in 2016 … maybe.
Microsoft has no plans for retina Office apps originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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