Today Microsoft and its new CEO Satya Nadella held an event in San Francisco and, just as expected, they officially announced a new version of Office for Apple's iPad. The app will include Word, Excel and PowerPoint and will be available for download from the App Store at approximately 11:00 a.m. PT / 2:00 p.m. ET.
Office for iPad is a freemium app. That means that users can read and present documents for free, but in order to create new docs or edit existing ones, an Office 365 subscription is needed. A Home Premium subscription to Office 365 is priced at either $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year. Microsoft also offers a college subscription to Office 365 that's priced at $79.99 for 4 years of access.
Microsoft launched Office Mobile for Office 365 on iPhone and Android last year, and we've been hearing rumblings about an iPad version since late 2012, so it's nice to finally see the app made official. The ability to read and present documents free of charge is a nice touch, but it is kind of a bummer that the only way that you can edit docs is with an Office 365 subscription. It would be nice if Microsoft simply allowed users to pay a one-time fee for the mobile apps, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen any time soon. At least Office is finally on the iPad, though, and so those folks that rely on Word, Excel and PowerPoint in their workflow can now get stuff done with their iPad.
UPDATE: The Office for iPad apps are now available for download. Yes, I said apps, as in the Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps that are all separate. You can find the download links for all three below.
UPDATE 2: Microsoft has also announced that it's making Office Mobile for iPhone and Android phones free today. In the past, users would need an Office 365 subscription to edit content on those handsets, but now both versions of Office Mobile are being updated to remove that restriction. The updated iPhone app is now live, but the Android app doesn't appear to have rolled out quite yet. You can find links to both apps below.
Via Microsoft (1), (2), App Store: Microsoft Word for iPad, Microsoft Excel for iPad, Microsoft PowerPoint for iPad, Microsoft Office Mobile for iPhone, Google Play: Microsoft Office Mobile for Android
