Gadgetory

yesterday Microsoft announced some iOS apps that we've been waiting for for a very long time and now we're wondering whether they were worth the wait I'm Taylor Martin this is PocketNow and this is a walk through of office for iPad yesterday at long last Microsoft released the much-awaited office suite for iPad as Microsoft Office is a globally recognized and used office suite a standard of sorts this is more significant than just any old app launch but do they live up to the long building hype are they worth the hassle or his office for I have had just another reminder that tablets are still a long way from replacing the desktop this is exactly what you can expect from office / iPad if you've used Office Mobile on either iOS or Android you will already understand the basic principle behind the basic functionality viewing mobile documents that's it Office for iPad is available in the form of three separate downloads Word Excel and PowerPoint for a total of just under 700 megabytes and they're completely free to download and use however you can only expect to view documents not edit or create without a Microsoft 365 subscription which is either $9.99 or $6.99 per month depending on the number of devices you plan to use if instead you have an office 365 subscription you can unlock the full functionality of Office for iPad which is strikingly similar to the full desktop experience from within word various formatting features picture inserts text flow settings and all sorts of other useful features are available it comes with a bevy of preset templates for quick creation of common document types and you can tweak those to your heart's desire you can add images shapes hyperlinks headers footnotes page breaks and almost all the objects you're used to dealing with from word on your desktop Excel for iPad includes its famous robust formula creation simply start typing a formula or choose one from the dedicated formula tab you can insert charts tables text boxes and pictures and even from the iPad it's a very desktop esque feel a feat for a mobile spreadsheet app in fact both Word and Excel are incredibly robust for mobile applications and if you've ever used office before these two applications will make you feel right at home Microsoft has perfectly captured the experience of its desktop offerings in its mobile versions of these apps but make no mistake these were designed with iPads and touch screens in mind it's evident and it makes these two apps in particular rather easy to cope with especially if you pair that experience with the Bluetooth keyboard as we have done we could see ourselves hammering out a document or spreadsheet on an iPad with few to no problems however it's important to note both Excel and Word are missing a few functionalities they're particularly great for anyone who wants to do basic document or spreadsheet creation or editing on the go in fact with the little elbow grease you could probably crank out some serious work with these apps but there's a chance you'll eventually run it to something you need to do that these mobile apps won't offer for instance you can insert formulas in word a feature that might be necessary for say a lab report and PowerPoint as is usually the case with mobile presentation creation is the most feature light of them all you can create presentations quite efficiently it's simple to understand and use particularly if you've used PowerPoint in the past however the slides you'll be making with PowerPoint for iPad are going to be rather basic you can format text edit layouts insert pictures text boxes and tables and you can edit transitions you can't get terribly in depth with your slides which may be a good thing if you're the type of person who gets carried away and adds 10 transitions per slide the point is if you need Microsoft Office support whether it be for work or school office for iPad is pretty impressive and it promises to maintain the same layouts no matter where you're accessing or editing your documents it's not groundbreaking or innovative but it's a necessary move for Microsoft and I'd say it executed these mobile apps incredibly well the main trick here that makes it so useful is onedrive support if you're using Word Excel or PowerPoint from your desktop it's save hit the road and break out an iPad to pick up where you left off and get some work done on the go this is similar functionality to Drive or iCloud paired with the iWork suite but from an office suite which is much more widely used and accepted as a standard the key difference is price Drive iCloud and iWork and even some other Suites are free of charge mobile or otherwise unless you need more cloud storage one of the biggest disappointments with office 4 I've had is the lack of the ability to print directly from within any of the apps we figure the feature was passed up on since you can simply save and print from your computer seconds later but still doesn't make up for not being there either way color us impressed it may have taken ages for office for iPad to arrive but at least Microsoft got it right that said we're not particularly fond of the subscription service and would have rather seen a moderately high initial buying cost with no monthly fees I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too though if you want Microsoft Office on all of your devices however if you want to try office for iPad free of charge download the free apps and head over to office comm slash tribe for a free 30-day trial have you tried office for iPad what are your thoughts be sure to tell us in the comments below thanks for watching everyone if you enjoyed this video be sure to click the thumbs up button below and of course subscribe to the channel if you want to see more videos like this one in the future be sure to follow us in all the usual places Twitter Facebook and Google+ to stay up to date on everything that's happening at pocket now i'm taylor mart you can find me on twitter at casper tech and i will see you next time