<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Office for iPhone Review\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nOpening Screen\nHere's the screen that greets you in Office Mobile for iPhone, available today in the Apple App Store. It's a free download, but you'll need to have an Office 365 subscription to use it.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSign-in Screen\nYou can sign in with an Office ID, which is usually your Microsoft account. Every Office user can add five iOS devices to their account, so a whole family can potentially use Office on their iPhones (or iPod Touches).\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nDocuments and Navigation\nThis is the Recent screen, which lets you browse recently edited or viewed documents as well as samples.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nSkyDrive Integrated\nAll documents are saved and synced to SkyDrive. If you use SharePoint, documents on that service are accessible, too.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nWord\nThe functions in Word are very minimal. Users can view documents and perform basic edits (including commenting), but adding bulleted lists or changing the font isn't possible.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFormatting Options\nHere are the formatting options available in Word for iPhone.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nLocked Document\nEven though this document is the right format (docx), it can't be edited in Word for iPhone.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nExcel\nExcel for iPhone includes many editing options, including generating tables and formatting cells.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEditing Tools\nHere are some of the editing tools you get in Excel.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPowerPoint\nPowerPoint for iPhone is mainly a viewer, but you can still add notes and edit the text in slides.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nEditing Slides\nHere are the few editing tools in PowerPoint.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nMultiple Slide View\nYou can view slide thumbnails with a tap.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIt took a long time, but Microsoft Office has finally come to the iPhone. Now, instead of making do with alternatives such as Google Drive or QuickOffice, Office 365 subscribers can install Office Mobile on up to five iOS devices and start editing Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents natively.\nMicrosoft has done a good job of creating \"mini\" versions of those three apps for the iPhone's small screen, although they're lean on features. That's not unexpected, since Microsoft isn't quite re-inventing the wheel here: Office Mobile already exists on Windows Phone, and Microsoft carries over much of those small-screen sensibilities \u2014 minimal chrome and a touch-first interface \u2014 to the world's most popular mobile device.\nSEE ALSO: How to Install Windows 8 Without Ditching Windows 7\n\nStill, there are a few frustrations as well. Some formatting functions are curiously absent. Copying and pasting isn't as straightforward as it should be. And you can't edit some types of documents. Microsoft has a sizable checklist for future updates.\nWhen you first launch the app, you're prompted to log in with your Office ID. That's really the extent of the setup \u2014 there's a brief (and skippable) introduction to the iPhone app, but you can start using it pretty much as soon as you're logged in.\nThe overall look and feel of the app is clean and minimalist. As you'd probably expect, Microsoft didn't put in any excessive ornamentation or \"skeuomorphic\" effects \u2014 this design is very functional. Even Google Drive, with its single embossed strip of editing functions, is decorative by comparison.\nThe bottom navigation has four options: Recent, Open, New and Settings. At launch, the app takes you to the Recent screen, showing documents you've worked on, well, recently. New lets you create new Word and Excel (but not PowerPoint) documents, showing you a few template options. Underneath that is This Week, and below that are a few sample documents. Open takes you to your SkyDrive.\nOne of the key functions of the app is SkyDrive integration. You can open any document you have there, and all documents are saved there. Office Mobile can save documents \"temporarily\" to the phone if you're offline, but normally everything goes to SkyDrive (all Microsoft accounts get 7GB of storage free).\nCloud storage is great, although it doesn't necessarily allow for the same real-time document collaboration that Google Drive enables \u2014 at least not on iPhone. Documents are stored locally until you save, and only then does the copy in the cloud get updated. \nWord\nWord is probably the app users will open the most. The Office Mobile version is really stripped down from the multitude of functions present in the desktop version, giving you only a very few options to format any text you select. It honestly feels too basic \u2014 you can't even create bulleted or numbered lists (something you can do in Google Drive).\nWord has a couple of advantages, though. First, the default text size is larger, and not as squint-worthy as in Drive. You also get options for highlighting text in a few colors. Plus, it includes my personal favorite formatting option: strikethrough. \nLike Drive, Word gives you is the ability to comment within documents. You do so by pressing and holding on text (what you'd normally do to copy and paste), then writing the comment, which you can edit later. Comments show up normally in the doc when viewed in any other Word client.\nStill, I'm a little miffed that Word for iPhone doesn't match the abilities of other apps in terms of formatting options \u2014 it doesn't even let you change the font. Clearly, Microsoft thinks Word on a phone is going to be used for the most basic of editing, not document creation. It keeps things focused, I suppose, but from the leader in desktop \"productivity\" it feels incomplete.\nExcel\nWhile Excel for iPhone is still bare compared to the desktop app, it feels more whole since the app lets you edit freely, using the formula field to write out many of the same commands (e.g. SUM) you'd create in any spreadsheet. You can \"freeze\" cells (locking their position), change the width of entire columns, and even change formatting of an individual cell.\nExcel also lets you do something you can't do in Word: Undo. Again, it mystifies me why this was left out of Word, but it's much appreciated in Excel, where an accidental tap of \"Clear\" can have disastrous results.\nWith good selection tools, the ability to create charts, and even use filters when viewing data, Excel is the highlight of Office for iPhone. Too bad it probably won't get as much use as its Wordy brother.\nPowerPoint\nPowerPoint actually offers the user decent functionality for a phone app. You can view slides (either one at a time or as a list) edit the slide text and add notes. Swiping and tapping work just how you'd expect.\nStill, there's no way to add or copy slides, create documents or do any serious editing, like importing a picture from your camera roll. And this is a little outside the box, but what about using the iPhone as a controller for the slideshow that's broadcast on an Apple TV?No, PowerPoint for iPhone is pretty much a glorified slide viewer. It's a good viewer, with some nice bonuses, but don't expect more than that.\nSatellite Office\nFrom the stripped-down, ultra-basic approach Microsoft has taken with Office Mobile, it's pretty clear what its intent is: To offer existing Office subscribers a native option on iPhone that will let them get by without running to a competitor. But it's not going to win over any new business with its current mobile experience, since, on functionality, those competitors have Microsoft beat.\nBear in mind, though, Office for iPhone is a 1.0 product, and now that Microsoft is fully immersed in touch interfaces, collaborative platforms and the cloud, there's lots of potential to iterate and improve. Until that day, there's not much here that will get the attention of anyone who's not using Office already.\nFor Office subscribers packing iPhones, though, Office Mobile an important missing link. Sure, it'd be nice to have more features, but the austere design and native functions are a big relief to finally get. And really, if you're subscribing anyway, what else are you going to use?\nScreen captures courtesy of Microsoft; image by Mashable"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/06/14/office-iphone-review/>