See Microsoft's new Office for iPad
After years of speculation, Microsoft Office is finally on the iPad.
In his first public appearance since being named Microsoft's (MSFT, Fortune 500) new CEO, Satya Nadella unveiled the next evolution of Office. The ubiquitous productivity suite, which includes apps such as Office and Excel, has been optimized for use with touch screens and fingers.
Microsoft had done some work on Office 2013 to make it more finger friendly, but with Office for iPad, it's a full-fledged step forward. The look of Office isn't radically changed, but many features have been subtly streamlined to make things less painful.
The biggest difference is that Microsoft isn't trying to push every formatting option in front of your face, instead identifying the most essential features, and using that screen space to make those icons bigger.
Microsoft Word, for example, closely resembles Word 2013, but the interface has been simplified to highlight just the most important formatting options. Text and images can easily be highlighted and manipulated with the finger--as is the case most iPad word processors.
Microsoft Excel is able to interpret what type of data you're working with and automatically suggest formatting options to save time digging through menus for a specific type of graph.
Powerpoint has been the most straightforward and tablet-ready product of the bunch, but on the iPad its as touch-optimized as you'd expect, allowing users to build presentations with a few taps and swipes.
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