What many thought was something that can never be combined, Microsoft and Apple have finally reached an agreement that Microsoft Office will now be available for iPad!
Microsoft has announced today Microsoft Office for iPad, with Word, PowerPoint, and Excel having been remodeled "from the ground up" for the touchscreen tablet experience.
"This isn't simply Office on another device," Microsoft said in their announcement. "We thought a lot about what people want to do when they're on their tablet, iPad functionality, and touch-first when we were building Office for iPad."
If you are wondering whether you can utilize the MS office software the same way you can in a personal computer, time.com said that they're not feature-complete replicas of the versions from Office's flagship Windows version. But they do look like they're considerably richer than the minimum viable versions would be. Word, for instance, lets you edit charts in place and do collaborative editing, complete with redlined changes and threaded comments. The interface is reminiscent of other versions of Office, with the Ribbon formatting bar up top, but Microsoft says it's been rethought to be touch-friendly. And as with other versions of Office, everything is saved by default to OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive), Microsoft's online storage service.
According to IGN.com, content and formatting of Office documents will be maintained whether you access them via computer, tablet, or phone. Documents can also be retrieved and accessed easily through Microsoft's cloud service OneDrive.
No keyboard or mouse will be needed to use Office for iPad.
The Office apps have both free and paid versions, downloadable via the App Store. The free version will allow users to read and view their documents; the paid version, accessible via an Office 365 subscription, will go one step further by allowing users to edit their documents. Subscribers can install Office for iPad on up to five devices, in addition to the five copies available for PC and Mac.
Office for iPad is available for iPads running iOS 7.0 or later.
Additionally, Office Mobile - which was previously free to Windows Phone users - is now also free for those using iPhones and Android devices. Microsoft says it will bring Office apps to the Windows Store and "other popular platforms" in the future.
With this, both companies will only benefit from each other significantly, as iPad is the leading tablet and Microsoft Office is the leading office suite in the world.
