Microsoft Office fans who’ve spent the last nine months using the software’s suite of apps on their tiny smartphone screens are probably thrilled that they can finally create and update documents on the iPad’s significantly bigger display surface.
The new version of Office for Apple’s tablet is not likely to be a big deal for anyone else. While the apps are beautiful, intuitive and include many familiar functions from the popular desktop version of Office, typing and maneuvering the cursor within documents remains awkward and inefficient.
Microsoft released Office for the iPad on Thursday; nearly four years after Apple launched the groundbreaking tablet. It includes the Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps that will be familiar to both business and everyday people.
Up until now, Office users had to make due with a very basic version designed for smartphones that first launched in June 2013. Competitors like Apple and Google also created similar software for the iPad, but those apps have very basic features and don’t always mesh perfectly with Microsoft documents.
Microsoft’s new apps are free, but you need an annual subscription to Microsoft’s Office 365, which costs between $70 and $100 depending on the version, to do more than just read documents.
By Friday afternoon, the trio of apps occupied the top three spots on the App Store’s real time list of most downloaded free apps. Honestly, the free versions may meet the needs of a lot of people, because displaying documents is one of the most useful functions of the apps.
Pulling up documents is quick and easy, especially if they’re stored on a user’s OneDrive account, which comes with 20 gigabytes of cloud storage space as part of the Office 365 subscription.
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