What are the key features?
Microsoft has stuck with the Ribbon in each of the apps. It is stripped back compared to the full-blown Office suite, but at first glance Microsoft has erred on the side of generosity when it comes to features. For instance, there’s still a Review ribbon in Word, which means that if you’re collaborating on a document then you can see comments and track changes.
Plus, it’s possible to create good-looking documents. There’s a good selection of fonts and it’s easy to add and manipulate photos.
Excel continues in this theme, with advanced features such as Sparklines; great if you’re trying to show trends with one easy glance. Excel for iPad will also suggest graphs based on the data you’ve selected.
Another nice touch is the special numeric keyboard that pops up when you tap into a cell, making it easy to sum columns or create formulae. Not something we’d wish to do on the standard iPad keyboard.
PowerPoint has stiff opposition in the form of Keynote, but our initial impression is that Microsoft has created a compelling presentation app. There are some nice transitions (such as “origami”, where the page crunches up and flies away), while pressing on the screen shows up as a laser pointer.
You can also make annotations with your finger – such as circling a number or creating a finger-drawn arrow, as shown below – which emphasises that Microsoft has designed these apps with touch in mind rather than simply trying to adapt its desktop software.