Pricing and Verdict
The Office for iPad apps are free to download and view documents, spreadsheets or presentations. However, to get full editing functionality you need an Office 365 subscription.
For individual users Office 365 costs 7.99 per month or 79 per year. This allows you to install Office on up to five tablets as well as up to five PCs or Macs.
Business subscriptions start at 8.40 per month, per user for up to 25 employees. This rises to 9.80 per if you want it for up to 300 employees. For an unlimited number of employees the subscription starts at 15 per month, per user.
Office for iPad is a welcome addition to the Apple ecosystem. Microsoft engineers have put a lot of thought into the interface and not overloaded the apps with features.
But there is work to be done. Support for third party cloud storage services would be welcome.
If you're already an Office 365 customer downloading these apps is a no brainer. However, if not - we suggest signing up to the free trial first.
Verdict
If you've got an Office 365 subscription then it's worth downloading the apps as you'll have full editing capabilities. Starting at £7.99 per month for access to Office on the tablet and desktop, it's only worth signing up if you're going to use this as your primary word processing suite.
Available on all iPad devices running iOS 7 and above.
