After a year of speculation and rumor Microsoft has finally introduced Office Mobile for the iPhone. The mobile version of Microsoft's document suite could help to boost productivity on the go, but some there are some stipulations.
For example, the service is only accessible to Office 365 subscribers - Microsoft's web-based document offering - where a Home Premium subscription to Office 365 runs users $99.95 a year or $10 a month. Its business edition, Small Business Premium, runs subscribers $150 a year for each user. And while the application works on the iPhone, there isn't a native iPad version available (yet).
Office Mobile for the iPhone comes with Word, Excel and Powerpoint applications. Like its desktop brethren, Office for the iOS will allow users to edit and update and send and sync documents through Microsoft's cloud storage service, SkyDrive. Users can create new Word and Excel documents too, though users won't be able create PowerPoint documents on the go. Mobile Office doesn't count against a user's limit of five computers.
"When we launched Office 365 earlier this year, we committed to delivering regular updates and new capabilities to Office 365 subscribers," Julia White, general manager of Microsoft's Office division, said in a company blog post.
Since then, we've expanded Skype calling and added new OneNote features. Office Mobile is another great example of the value of subscribing to Office 365, and I can guarantee you, there will be lots more to come."
All together, Microsoft's iPhone Office offering is, essentially, a solid port of Office Mobile for Windows Phone 8, according to Windows expert Paul Thurrott.
Office for the iPhone has been rumored for quite sometime, and was allegedly held up over concerns with Apple's licensing agreement where Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all application profits - both for the price of the application and any in-app sales, according to Thurrott. Apparently the two tech giants came to an understanding.
Office Mobile works on the iPhone 4 and up and the newer 4G-connected iPads (iPads will run the iPhone version of the application). Office requires all Apple products to run iOS 6.1 or later.
