A few months ago, Microsoft introduced a new mobile app called Office—a whole new experience designed to be the go-to app for getting work done on a mobile device.
It combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint into a single app and introduces new capabilities that enable one to create content and accomplish tasks in uniquely mobile ways to help one achieve more. Microsoft now announced the Office app is out of public preview and now generally available worldwide for anyone on Android and iOS phones.
Hundreds of millions of people use Office to achieve more at work, home, and school. Microsoft took this as a challenge for Office to find a better overall productivity experience that would change perceptions of how you could work on a mobile device to create an experience that was simpler, more integrated, harnessed the unique strengths of mobile devices, and truly put mobile needs at the forefront.
The Office app delivers several key benefits including:
- Combining Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in a way that simplifies the experience with fewer apps to download or switch between. It requires far less phone storage than installing individual apps while maintaining virtually all the capabilities of the existing mobile apps people already know and use.
- Integrating our Lens technology to unlock the power of the camera with capabilities like converting images into editable Word and Excel documents, scanning PDFs, and capturing whiteboards with automatic digital enhancements to make the content easier to read.
- Adding new functionality for common tasks people often encounter when working on a phone—things like making quick notes, signing PDFs, scanning QR codes, and transferring files between devices.
Altogether, the Office app is a powerful tool that is intuitive and familiar yet still uniquely different.
Microsoft have made several enhancements since the public preview—such as support for third-party storage services including Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud; templates to help you create new documents, spreadsheets, and presentations; and general performance improvements.
The release is also available for download on Android tablets with limited support. The Office app for Android is fully optimized for tablets when working with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents and we are committed to making the rest of the Android app as well as the iOS app fully optimized for tablets soon.
