When the Microsoft Office Mobile app arrived on Android phone, iPhone, and iPad in the first quarter of last year, it was also announced that a tablet version for Android devices will be coming this year. The time is now and the preview apps are here. It seems pretty unfair that Android tablets are getting them after nearly a year since the iPad versions but I’m sure you’ll agree that its better late than never.
Similar to iPad and iPhone, Microsoft (MS) has released 3 different apps for Android tablets and these consist of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Although MS has removed the restriction for of requiring an Office 365 subscription to create and edit documents, on other non-preview apps on iPhone and Android phones, it does look like the same does not apply for these ones iPad and Android tablets. If you want to try them out in full, you’ll still need a subscription plan to do so (but I’m sure that it will be fixed in I hope that it will be opened up with in the future updates).
Testers will also be able to view documents stored on their OneDrive with the built-in cloud integration but here too the preview apps falter. Based on user feedbacks, the Dropbox support found on existing apps is still not present here. On another note, it seems weird that MS would release Android apps without the support for Google Drive, but we’re hoping that it too is something MS is working on.
The apps are a little on the heavy side, with each app requiring a minimum of 115 MB to install, but with the kind of storage capacities available, this should not be an important criteria. What would be important though are the complaints about the app being slow and unresponsive. These are definitely teething issues that should be ironed out when the apps move out of preview state.
Please download the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint preview apps from Google Play Store now and try them out for yourselves. Please note that MS has added an unusual restriction where only tablets with display sizes ranging from 7” to 10.1” will be able to use them. Testers are encouraged to leave theirs feedbacks on the Microsoft Office for Android Tablets Preview Google+ community page (requires a request for access).
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