Microsoft Office for iPad app to be launched before July: Report

When Microsoft released Office for the iPhone last year in summer, speculation was rife that the Redmond software giant would soon launch a version for the iPad too. However, over the last year, there were conflicting reports about the new version of Office for iPad repeatedly surfacing, with its rumoured launch date repeatedly varying.

According to a new report however, Microsoft is working and is ahead of its schedule to launch Office for the iPad. It was earlier rumoured that the new version would come only after Microsoft released its own touch-first version of Office sometime around fall this year. However, now the new report claims that it will be released before July and that Microsoft has gone ahead with developing Office for iPad and will release it, prior to its own touch-first version.

The project, Office for iPad, is reportedly codenamed 'Miramar', whilst Microsoft's own touch-first version for Windows 8 is said to be called 'Gemini'. The iPhone version of Office nevertheless is fairly basic, and it does require a subscription to Office 365 if one wishes to use it on the iPhone. Important to note also, is the fact, it is fairly basic in its applications. Outside a few edits to Word documents and Excel sheets, not much can be done on it. And PowerPoint presentations cannot be edited at all.

It might all point to the fact that Microsoft might want to tap into the huge iPad sales numbers for its Office software, but it wouldn't want more users to try it via iOS, hence the new version for the iPad too might require an Office 365 subscription. Also, given that the version used on the iPhone is a fairly basic one, there might not be a lot that a user can expect from the iPad version. There are also suggestions made that the files might be saved on OneDrive, (formerly SkyDrive), Microsoft's cloud storage platform. It would nevertheless remain to be seen what Microsoft is planning to offer users through the new version.