This June seems to be the month that brings a lot of iOS-related innovation. Only a short while ago Apple announced iOS7 at the WWDC and now Microsoft Office Mobile, a version of Office 365, gets released in the App Store. Microsoft did it all very quietly and didn’t make any big announcements about the release.
The release of Microsoft Office for iPhone is great news, but is it worth getting the app? Well, there are some pros and cons. Let’s start with the pros.
Office for iPhone will give you access to your SkyDrive and all your Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents. It also supports access to SkyDrive Pro and SharePoint, which makes it very handy if you travel a lot and need an option to access your business documents from your phone.
Another great thing is that you can edit your documents even when you’re offline. This is handy for working while on a plane. You can also create new documents and search your account.
So what are the cons? The main disappointment is that only iPhone is supported and there’s no iPad version yet. This makes the app not as useful as it could be because it’s not as functional on the iPhone as it can be on the iPad. And the lack of options to use it without a subscription makes Office for iPhone less attractive than it is at a glance. But at least the app itself is free.
So, it’s up to you whether to get Office for iPhone now or wait until it has more options and there is an iPad version. In any case, the fact that Microsoft released it is cool.