Office for iPad is here but you’ll have to pay to get the most out of it
It has taken a long time but Office for iPad is now here! On Satya Nadella’s 52nd day at Microsoft CEO, he took to the stage to announce the software. Julia White was on hand during the conference to show off the new applications designed specifically for iOS platforms. There are applications for Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
“When it comes to Office 365, the vision if fairly straightforward,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella at a press conference in San Francisco today. “It is to make sure that the one billion Office users have access to the high fidelity Office experience on every device they love to use. Today’s announcement marks one more step in that direction.”
Microsoft Excel has a custom numeric keyboard which places buttons in better positions for working with spreadsheets.
In PowerPoint there’s a purpose-built laser pen tool which allows you to highlight things of interest in your presentations.
Office 365 Personal Announced
Microsoft is now offering an Office 365 Personal subscription. It comes a lot cheaper than the Office 365 Home and allows you to get to work on Word, PowerPoint and Excel on your iPad. This is the best option if you’re an individual user as it allows you to hook up a computer and an iPad under one subscription.
Microsoft hasn’t announced any plans for Office on Android tablets yet. There’s currently asmartphone app for Android but still no word on Office for tablets. Apple and Google both have pretty well established office applications on iOS in the form of iWorks and Drive. Both are free and very capable applications. Has Microsoft delayed too long? Has the company missed the boat? And, more importantly, will consumers on iPad want to pay £7.99 a month for it?
Nadella’s work is not done yet, Microsoft’s Build Conference 2014 begins next week where we are expecting to see the announcement of Windows Phone 8.1.
