Office for the iPad is finally here
On Thursday at a San Francisco event hosted by new chief executive Satya Nadella, Microsoft officially announced that it is releasing its popular Office suite for the iPad. He said the iPad Office move is part of Microsoft’s new era of innovation, which will focus on bringing PC-level computing to all devices, no matter who makes them. More than 1 billion people use Office across the world, and many of them are increasingly looking to access their documents and software on mobile devices. The apps have a touch-based interface that mirrors their PC versions, letting users do fairly sophisticated layout and text editing on their tablets just as they would on the PC. Users will be able to read, view and present documents for free.
However, according to the Microsoft blog, users will need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents or create new documents from the iPad. The apps have the same collaborative features as the firm’s cloud-based Office offerings and integrate with its cloud-storage app, OneDrive, to keep track of changes when multiple users edit a single document. The PowerPoint app also has a presentation mode complete with a digital laser pointer that is triggered by holding one’s finger on the screen, something unique to the Office for iPad app. Microsoft also announced a program called “In-Tune” for information technology professionals to manage devices, including those that run Google’s Android mobile operating system or Apple’s iOS.