Office finally comes to Android
From Thursday, Android tablet owners who long for more productivity and PowerPoint will be able to download Microsoft's apps from the Google Play Store.
Apps and mobile devices may well be revolutionizing how we work and play but, for the moment at least, Microsoft's evergreen suite of productivity applications -- Word, Excel and PowerPoint -- are still the gold standard. And until now they have been conspicuously absent for Android tablet though iPhone and iPad owners have been able to download the apps for nearly a year already.
However, unlike their Apple device counterparts, the Android apps won't run on all devices. Your tablet will have to have a 7-inch or larger display, be running version 4.4 (KitKat) of Android and have at least 1GB of RAM on board in order for the applications to work properly.
Technically speaking, each of the apps is free. All you'll need for them to run on your tablet is a Microsoft account and, once signed in, you'll be able to edit and save documents.
If you have a Microsoft 365 subscription, it will unlock a number of ‘premium' features in each of the apps -- such as syncing documents across devices but many users will be able to get by with just the basics. However, if you have a large screen (i.e., greater than 10-inches) tablet, none of the apps will work without a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Android tablets are available to download now, as individual apps from the Google Play Store.
