Microsoft Office Mobile For iPhone Is Now Official
Microsoft has released the Office Mobile application for the iPhone, enabling users to view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents from virtually anywhere. It is free to download but requires an Office 365 subscription.
According to the Office Mobile app page on iTunes, Microsoft has carefully optimised the app for the iPhone’s 4-inch display and, as usual with Microsoft’s software, it features full integration with SkyDrive and Sharepoint.
It’s also synchronised to the extent that there is a ‘Recent Documents’ list for quick access and if you left reading a document on a computer or tablet the iOS app will pick up on exactly the same page via SkyDrive.
Offline editing will sync with your documents saved in the cloud when a connection becomes available. The app is also tailored to work with documents sent as email attachments.
Microsoft believes iPad users are better served by the Office 365 web apps anyway and hasn’t (yet) announced this app for the tablet.
The new app might suggest a closer collaboration between Microsoft and Apple, especially following the slightly hidden announcement at WWDC that the default search engine for Siri will be Bing, not Google.
Subscribers to Office 365 will get the Office Mobile app to use on up to five iPhones for free, although the service is currently only available in the US. Microsoft have confirmed that they will continue to roll out the service across 136 markets in 29 different languages in the coming days.
