Office for iPhone
For many professionals, Microsoft Office is the only productivity suite that does the job. In fact, that’s the most widely used software program around the world, with over 90% of the market in productivity suites. But with the increasing uses of tablets and smartphones, many of us want to bring our document editing capabilities with us on the go. Up until now, the only way to do that was to use a Microsoft device such as a Windows Phone. There have long been rumors that the company was working on an iOS version, but without any confirmation. Now, Microsoft has released its very first version for iPhone.
Right now, the offering is fairly meager. The app is available on the App Store for iPhone only, without a tablet version. When contacted for comments, the company says that they encourage users to use the web based version of Office when on an iPad. Also, the app doesn’t do any local saving, which means you must rely solely on SkyDrive to store documents. Finally, while the app is free, you must have an Office 365 subscription to use it. So needless to say, a lot of early reviews are negative, with few people fitting into this usage pattern.
Still, if you happen to use the cloud and subscribe to Office 365, then you may try it on your iPhone. The US version was released yesterday with other countries following in the coming days. Right now the app allows basic editing functionality for all Office document types. In fact the Windows Phone version is still a better release, but for basic editing needs, this one works just fine.
