Office comes to iOS: Microsoft releases Office 365 app for iPhone

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
Microsoft on Friday released its Office Mobile 365 app for Apple's iPhone, allowing users with subscriptions to the productivity suite to access Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents on the go.

Office Mobile


With Microsoft's Office Mobile, users can view documents stored in Microsoft's SkyDrive, SkyDrive Pro or SharePoint, as well as read and edit Office docs sent as email attachments. Additionally, owners of Windows machines can remotely access documents that were recently viewed on a desktop client.

Another PC-only feature is "Resume Reading," which allows Word documents opened from SkyDrive or SkyDrive Pro to automatically jump to where users left off on their Windows computer or tablet.

Microsoft says documents are optimized before being viewed on the iPhone, while support for charts, animations, SmartArt Graphics and shapes comes built-in. Also available is an in-app Slide Navigator in PowerPoint and a function to help with presentation practice.

From the release notes:
Make quick edits and share:
* Edit - You can make quick edits to Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents.
* Documents Remain Intact - Formatting and content remain intact when you edit Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents on your phone.
* Edit While Offline - Your device doesn?t have to be continuously connected to the network to work on an Office document that is stored online. You can view and edit recently used documents even while you?re offline. Your changes will be saved online when your device reconnects to the network or to Wi-Fi.
* Create ? You can create new Word and Excel documents on your phone.
* Comments - You can review comments that have been made in Word and Excel documents on your phone and add your own comments.
* Share - When you?re done with your edits or comments, simply send the document in email or save it to SkyDrive or SharePoint.
Office Mobile comes in at 58MB and is available from the App Store as a free companion app for existing Office 365 subscribers. Microsoft Office 2013 for PC is required for recent document and resume reading.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 49
    chandra69chandra69 Posts: 638member


    Can I create public documents on iCould's iWork, so that I can share them with my family or friends? 

  • Reply 2 of 49
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member


    I probably would have bought this if it was available on iPad, in the UK and not tied to an Office 365 subscription.




    Oh well.

  • Reply 3 of 49
    @tiger@tiger Posts: 18member
    Not available in the Norwegian app store yet
  • Reply 4 of 49
    starbird73starbird73 Posts: 538member
    Well, they did say they didn't have Office for iPad...
  • Reply 5 of 49
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Not in the Dutch store either. And iPhone only is a truly despicable attempt at getting Office Everywhere. Besides, once you've worked on a document the changes have to be saved and shared through email or their Sky Stuff. Thusly creating a new document. How typical, these try outs coming from MS. Oh well, at least they optimised it for the 5, so one star for that.
  • Reply 6 of 49
    123m4c123m4c Posts: 10member
    iPhone only is a teaser. Not available in Canadian store either, seems to be US only for now.
  • Reply 7 of 49
    realwarderrealwarder Posts: 136member


    Subscription only is one way to get around paying any store cut. 


     


    Will be interesting to see how long before it appears on an iPad given the push of Office as a USP on a Surface tablet.  I'd say a while or never.

  • Reply 8 of 49
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member


    Someone is obviously scared.

  • Reply 9 of 49
    Microsoft's planting the seeds of a contingency plan, in case Surface and other Windows hardware sales keeps slowing. I'd love to see more collaboration between Apple & Microsoft
  • Reply 10 of 49
    smiles77smiles77 Posts: 668member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Chandra69 View Post


    Can I create public documents on iCould's iWork, so that I can share them with my family or friends? 



     


    Not currently. There are no collaboration, multi-user editing, or tracked changes options. It's essentially the same experience you'd have using their iPad apps.

  • Reply 11 of 49
    Heh. Meh. Too little, too late. I'm successfully weened off of Office. I'd like to keep my iPhone and Mac Microsoft-free.

    But I'm sure someone will want this turd.
  • Reply 12 of 49
    bluenixbluenix Posts: 42member


    Interesting. So I have an Office 365 account (company account). I logged in and created a new WORD document. When I tried to save that "in the cloud" (which is SkyDrive for MS) it asks me again for my microsoft account and wouldn't even recognize my log-in and PW.


     


    Does that mean that I have to sign up for SkyDrive individually?


     


    I will always have critism for Apple when it comes to internet services. But at Apple my subscription for an Office service would include online storage and would NOT require me to sign up for that extra.


     


    Apart from that: The WORD editor is a joke. Seriously!!!!


    Font size, 3 colors, 3 markers, bold, underline.... that's all there is.


     


    Having said that, I'm a fan of Win8 - graphically .... So I like how this app LOOKS (not works!).

  • Reply 13 of 49
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member
    I'm going to hold out for the iWatch version.
  • Reply 14 of 49
    dunksdunks Posts: 1,254member
    gazoobee wrote: »
    Someone is obviously scared.

    Exactly. This is a response to iWork for iCloud which was demoed earlier in the week. Honestly that must have sent shivers down their spines. Sorry Microsoft, I can barely stand using the version of office work gave me for free. I'm sure as hell not paying you a subscription fee.

    They are on the precipice. Windows is turgid compared to OS X. If anyone takes enough market share from Office to make it no longer a defacto standard the rest of the dominoes will fall, spectacularly.
  • Reply 15 of 49
    appexappex Posts: 687member
    M$, you are PATHETIC!
  • Reply 16 of 49


    Err, I have Pages, which as a bonus integrates with Text-To-Speech. What the hell would I want a crippled subscription-only bit of bloatware for? 

  • Reply 17 of 49


    Obviously the iWork in the cloud reveal made MS crap their pants. The great reviews the beta is getting probably made them cry. I'll bet iWork in the cloud will be free as well instead of this stupid subscription junk.

  • Reply 18 of 49
    peteopeteo Posts: 402member

    Pretty interesting that this comes out right after apple announces iwork for icloud.


    EDU office 365 pricing is pretty good, $74 for 4 years. gives you access to Office for pc/mac, office 365 mobile apps and office on demand (streams office to a pc/mac without it)+ 27gb of skydrive space.


    No real web version though. Also the iphone app has pretty limiting editing abilities. But documents look exactly like do in office on the computer & editing and saving them will not screw them up.

  • Reply 19 of 49
    rednivalrednival Posts: 331member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Penguinisto View Post


    Err, I have Pages, which as a bonus integrates with Text-To-Speech. What the hell would I want a crippled subscription-only bit of bloatware for? 



     


    You don't but Apple is taking over the enterprise in mobile, and like it or not, Office is still king in the enterprise on Mac and PC.  You're probably not the target market.

  • Reply 20 of 49


    No thanks...don't want anything MS in my life or on my devices and certainly don't like subscription services that go into my account and take money out!

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