Microsoft Brings Office to Android Smartphones
by Brandon Chester on June 24, 2015 2:22 PM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Microsoft
- Android
- Office
Today Microsoft announced that their line of Office applications has made its way to Android smartphones. After launching the first touch-optimized version of Office on the iPad, Microsoft has gradually been building out support for Android. It began with Office for Android first launching as a preview for ARM based tablets running KitKat, with the final release working on Lollipop. Shortly after, Microsoft began supporting Android tablets that use Intel processors, like the Dell Venue 8. Throughout all this, support for Android phones was still absent. With some Android devices having screens that are 6" or even larger, creating a version of Office for them actually made a lot of sense.
With today's release, Microsoft now supports essentially every Android device. Whether your screen is big or small, and your processor ARM or Intel, you'll be able to use Office on your Android device. Microsoft's partnerships with phone manufacturers mean that these apps will also come preloaded on many future smartphones and tablets.
Source: Microsoft Office Blog
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lilmoe - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
oh, where do you sideload from btw?kspirit - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
I just download their APK from apkmirror or something and install it. Can even get notifications when updates are available via pushbullet so it doesn't suck all that much. Still, I'd have appreciated if it was available on Play anyhow.lilmoe - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
thanksFYoung - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
I was able to install them in Canada with no issues or workarounds.FYoung - Wednesday, June 24, 2015 - link
The Microsoft link explicitly says that they are available from Galaxy Apps worldwhile and from certain sites in China. My phone is a Samsung, but I downloaded them from the Google Playstore.kspirit - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
Then perhaps it's 'selected' countries which usually means mostly in the Western ones. I'm in Pakistan and besides Outlook, OneDrive, and Skype, all of Microsoft apps have to be sideloadedBrokenCrayons - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
It's nice to see Microsoft expanding the reach of Office. There are a lot of Android devices out there so getting their presence into the pockets of so many people can't hurt and the existing Office suites for phones are features limited or are outright spyware that monitors every aspect of phone activity (not that Google isn't already capable of doing so out of the box). Still, I think Windows phones are a better choice at this point despite their many drawbacks.Nandie - Thursday, June 25, 2015 - link
But you cannot save the documents on the internal storage of your phone or sd card...KPOM - Saturday, June 27, 2015 - link
Are you sure this is the case? You can save documents locally on the iOS version of Office.mlazatin - Friday, June 26, 2015 - link
Too late in the game. If MS launched this earlier, there would have been no need for polaroffice, google docs, etc.