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Microsoft has been taking their sweet time to make sure Office for Android is just right. If you aren’t satisfied with the current lackluster experience or alternatives like Google Drive and its suite of document editing apps, then you’ve had your eye on Office for quite some time. Thankfully it appears we’re not far from seeing a full release.
Microsoft has started inviting people to try out Office for Android through their SharePoint registration site. Users can sign up for either home or business, and can expect access to the following wide range of Microsoft apps and services (should they have the appropriate subscription, anyhow):
Microsoft recently made their phone-bound Office apps free to download and use, though functionality was limited to just viewing and editing Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents. It also doesn’t provide a neat interface for tablets. The new Android apps (which you’ll need an Office 365 subscription for) should closely mirror what iOS users are enjoying right now, which would be a clean and smooth touch-friendly user interface that makes it easy to whip around documents on a decent-sized tablet.
If you’ve been jonesing for this release and wouldn’t mind giving it a try you can head to Microsoft’s site right here to apply. It’s no guarantee, but you might as well give it a shot and see if Microsoft can’t hook you up before they deliver the goods to everyone else.
[via The Verge]
Who cares? With the recent drive, docs,slides and sheets updates I dont need this :P
I’ve gone back and forth between the current release of Office for Android and the Google apps. I have yet to get the OTA for the new Google suite, so I can’t edit Office docs with it just yet, but I should get those updates in a matter of days.
The core advantage with Microsoft’s app is that you get all 3 editing tools within one application as opposed to separate apps. It is also FAR smoother with user interaction (Google’s apps are a lag fest). On the other hand, Google’s apps allow for real time synchronization and collaboration (Office has some horrid sync issues in areas with limited data). Google also allows for printing from their office suite, which Microsoft doesn’t do as of yet.
I actually prefer the 4 separate apps (drive, docs, sheets and slides) that way if you don’t use one, you can ditch it and not be stuck with the bloatware, also it allows you shortcuts to the right document type.
But given MS trackrecord lately, I have lost too much faith in them being a big player in the mobile scene for me
WPS office (Kingsoft) does everything I need. Wish I had found it before I paid for documents to go.
As of 0934 CDT the webform is not loading for either Personal or Business testing. Anyone else having this issue?
Same here
According to @MicrosoftHelps the service is down, so it may be a bit… Chalk one more up to MSFT
MS office is laggy , buggy, crashes all the time another pos from ms. Google docs is million times better does all my work.
Thanks for blinding me with that giant Office 365 logo.
And zero f8cks were given