Julia White, writing on Microsoft’s Office News blog:
Today, we’re releasing Office Mobile for iPhone available at no extra charge from the Apple App Store for Office 365 Home Premium and Office 365 ProPlus subscribers. Similar to our free Office Mobile for Windows Phone that ships with every handset, the iPhone app enables great Office content viewing and on-the-go content editing capabilities.
This is a huge miss by Microsoft. They have given iPhone users six years to learn how to manage mobile documents without Office. Today’s announcement didn’t make a very compelling case for why these users should bother starting now.
First, the app is native only to the iPhone. With the iPad growing at an unbelievable rate, why limit consumers to a small-screen device? Second, the app is free but requires a $99 yearly subscription to Office 365. For a one-time price of $60, I purchased the entire iWork suite for iOS - apps that can edit Office documents and run natively on iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.
In an increasingly touch-based digital world, Office just feels old and irrelevant. File this under “Too little, too late.”