Finally. Office 365 is available for the iPhone, lets you edit any Word, Excel and PowerPoint file

[anuseems]

After so many years of speculation, its finally happened. At long last, an app encompassing Microsofts popular Office applications is available for iOS owners.

Its called Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers, which is hardly the most attractive name, but its a little besides the point at this stage. For users with an Office 365 subscription, it means they can access, view and edit any file previously saved in Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Powerpoint.

The introduction will undoubtedly be welcomed by all Office 365 subscribers, as it significantly increases the perceived value of the service. Documents are said to look like the originals and support rich media content such as charts, animations, SmartArt graphics and shapes. It also means that when the user makes an edit or submits an additional comment to a document, all of the formatting and content will remain unchanged.

The app pulls all of the users files from the cloud, meaning that Office documents can be stored and downloaded from SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro and SharePoint. Theres also device syncing, so recent documents that have been edited or accessed on one device say a desktop PC or Windows RT tablet will be shown in the iOS app through the recent documents panel. Similarly, when the user opens a document from SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro, it will open up at the exact place where they last stopped reading regardless of which device they previously accessed it from.

With the app installed, iOS users can also instantly see and edit any Office documents that have been attached to an email message. So theres no need to open documents in a third-party app and then export it again as an Office-compatible file format.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint all look slightly different on the iPhone theyve been optimized for the smaller display size, after all and theres also a number of original presentation views, such as Slide Navigator for browsing presentations made in PowerPoint.

Office 365 is a cloud-based service, but that doesnt mean that the user needs an Internet connection to get to work. The app saves recently viewed and edited documents automatically, so that theyre always available regardless of where the user is at the time. Documents can then be viewed and edited offline, with changes being submitted to the cloud when the user connects to a new network.

The app has a few catches though. For starters, every users needs an Office 365 subscription, which isnt exactly cheap. Microsoft Office 2013, installed on a PC, is also a necessity for some of the apps most pivotal features, such as resumed reading and accessing recent documents.

Office Mobile for Office 365 subscribers is available now in the App Store, but only for users based in the United States right now. Its compatible with the iPhone 4 and up running iOS 6.1 or later, as well as the fifth generation iPod Touch.

So there you have it. Office on iOS. You asked for it. Microsoft delivered. Eventually.

@ https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/office-mobile-for-office-365/id541164041?mt=8

[CODYQX4]

BS that you have to have a subscription. What about us that buy (or pirate) it as perpetual license?

I'd give them $50 for a full mobile Office solution (not gimped or time limited), as opposed to the cost of $600 for Pro Plus. That is higher than all the other Office Suites.

How many consumers will actually have the subscription? They'll probably run their copy of 2007 or 2010 (because I doubt that many ran out and bought 2013, as the average consumer wouldn't race from 2010 to 2013).

They just blew their chance to dominate the mobile office suite area by requiring that subscription vs selling the app.