If you asked someone on the street to name a Microsoft product they can’t live without, they would likely mention Microsoft Office, the suite that includes Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Even Apple fans find themselves installing Office the second they buy a new Mac. IPhone owners have yearned for a way to access and edit Office documents on the go, yet Microsoft has kept this valuable asset restricted to its Windows Phones and Surface tablets.
Until now.
[ See post to watch video ]
Last Friday, Microsoft released Office Mobile, a free app in the Apple App Store. This mobile version of Office lets you work on something at your desk, like a Word document or PowerPoint presentation, leave your desk and pull up the exact same document on your iPhone later. Any changes you make get saved back to a copy of the document and are there when you open it at your desk again.
This is a significant step for Microsoft, which has watched many of its users, especially younger users, migrate to free cloud-based programs like Google Drive, or to mobile office suites like Quickoffice. I’ve relied heavily on creating and sharing documents with other Google users via Drive for projects like planning my wedding, organizing To Do lists with my husband and coordinating my sister’s baby shower.
Unfortunately, there are many catches to using Office Mobile on the iPhone. If you can get past these, it’s a solid app that does a good job of making you forget you’re working on a small screen. It uses a lot of white space without excess text that would create clutter and its minimal number of icons allows easy access to actions like viewing and editing.
Office Mobile for iPhone app lets Microsoft Office 365 users edit their PowerPoint presentations on the go.
The first thing people should know is that Office Mobile only works for people who have a Microsoft Office 365 account. This cloud-centric, subscription version of Office starts at $ 80 a year for students using Office 365 University or $ 100 a year for Office 365 Home Premium users. If you only use a more traditional, desktop-based version of this suite, like Office 2011 or even Office 2013, you can’t use Office Mobile.
Second, it isn’t an iPad app, though you can hit the “2x” magnification button on your iPad to see it in a tablet-sized view with some slight pixilation. The iPhone’s 4-inch screen isn’t too small to use for creating, reading or editing Word documents, but cells of numbers and text in Excel spreadsheets aren’t exactly ideal for the iPhone’s screen.
Third, Office Mobile isn’t available for Android, so anyone who owns, say, a Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC One can’t use this app.
And there are other caveats. Office Mobile for iPhone doesn’t include Outlook, so if you’re a big fan of this email program, you’re out of luck on the go. Also, you can’t create PowerPoint presentations from your iPhone—though you can access and edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Users can also work on Excel spreadsheets in Office Mobile for iPhone.
One purchase of Office 365 allows up to five installations on Windows PCs or Macs and up to five installations on phones, not including Windows Phones, which come preloaded with a more extensive version of Office Mobile. But even though I tested Office Mobile on an iPhone and an iPad, my account only reflected my computer installations of Office 365. A spokesman for Microsoft said this will be updated in the future to show a more comprehensive list of installations.
I signed into my Office 365 account and found all of the documents I saved to SkyDrive waiting for me in this app. (SkyDrive is the name for Microsoft’s cloud-storage system and it synchronizes documents so they reflect recent changes no matter where you open them.) Unlike some competing iPhone office suites, the app only saves documents to SkyDrive, not to the phone itself or other cloud services.
Four quick access buttons get you started with this app: Recent, Open, New and Settings. The Recent panel groups Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents together, yet sorts them into helpful time-related sections like Today, Yesterday, Two Weeks Ago and Older. The Open panel gives you access to SkyDrive or to a SharePoint account, which is Microsoft’s more corporate-focused option for cloud storage. In the New panel, I saw templates like Agenda and Outline for Word and Budget and Mileage Tracker for Excel. Templates like these are especially helpful if you’re creating a document on the go using a small screen like the iPhone.
Word documents are also accessible on the app.
Within projects in Word and Excel, I could tap an eye icon in the top right to change to Outline View or to search for a specific word in the document. Text formats can be adjusted, including highlighting, font size, strikethroughs, bolding and others, but you can’t change a font type. In Excel, AutoSums can be added, charts can be created and cells can be formatted. In a PowerPoint presentation, I edited slide text and browsed many slides at once in the Presentation View. Turning my iPhone into landscape view showed a slide taking up the full screen, while portrait view displayed my speaker notes below the slide—a handy cheat sheet for presentations.
As I accessed documents, any comments I made on them were noted in a small red tab. Tapping on this tab also gave me access to comments from others with whom I shared the document. New projects and edits to existing projects aren’t automatically saved as you go. Rather, when you navigate away from the document, you’re prompted to save changes to your SkyDrive, or simply discard changes.
Office Mobile for iPhone works well—if you meet all of the qualifications to use it. But Microsoft needs to demonstrate its presence on more platforms, including iPads and Android devices, to lure Office users from the many available free alternatives.
Email katie.boehret@wsj.com
Related Posts:
$0.01 (0 Bids)End Date: Monday Jun-24-2013 19:18:32 PDTBid now | Add to watch list
12V 7AH SLA Battery Replaces hr9-12 gp1270 sla1075 gp1270f2 wp7-12 bp8-12 - 2PK
$32.25End Date: Thursday Jun-27-2013 5:56:08 PDTBuy It Now for only: $32.25Buy It Now | Add to watch list
Related Posts:
After months of rumors and speculation on Microsoft’s Office plans for iOS, the software giant is finally delivering a copy for iPhone today. Office Mobile for iOS will be strictly iPhone-only initially, and Microsoft is only offering access to the application through an Office 365 subscription. When we first uncovered Microsoft’s Office for iOS plans in November, we had heard basic viewing functionality would be enabled in the apps. Those plans have clearly changed, and to view and edit documents you’ll need to sign into an account with Office 365. There’s no free standalone version, nor an iPad edition.
Question by Lucy92: Will a battery for Samsung Vibrant phone fit the Samsung Galaxy S 4g? My Samsung galaxy S 4g’s battery needs to be replaced. Since the Vibrant is practically the same, will the battery work on my Samsung galaxy?
Best answer:
Answer by COLORADOIt seems so,see the link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Galaxy-S-4G-i9000-Vibrant-SGH-T959-Epic-4G-Mobile-Cell-Phone-Battery-/330822670174?pt=PDA_Accessories&hash=item4d0691575e
Hope to help you
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Related Posts: Motorola XOOM MZ602 32GB, Wi-Fi + 4G (Verizon), 10.1in - Black
$169.99End Date: Sunday Jun-30-2013 0:13:57 PDTBuy It Now for only: $169.99Buy It Now | Add to watch list
MOTOROLA XOOM MEDIA EDITION MZ505-M0C73 10.1" CAPACITIVE TOUCH ANDROID TABLET
$61.00 (20 Bids)End Date: Thursday Jun-20-2013 9:25:56 PDTBid now | Add to watch list
In promising unemployment news, the ancient ruins of Stonehenge are seeking their first general manager. Job responsibilities presumably include sleeping in late, making sure nothing has fallen over, and leaving work early. What is Stonehenge anyways? I always imagined they’re like, the ruins of some ancient sorcerer’s workshop.
The English Heritage organization, which oversees English historic sites, is searching for a general manager of the mysterious monument — the first time such a position has existed since Stonehenge was built, sometime around 2,500 B.C.
The senior manager will lead 80 employees and 100 volunteers in this new burst of modern activity at the ancient site. The person selected for the position will be expected to work with druid leaders who make regular pilgrimages to the Wiltshire stones.
English Heritage’s Tim Reeve told BBC that the organization is seeking a special someone who can maintain “the dignity of the stones.”
First of all (and despite what I said in the title), they shouldn’t really say the person chosen will be Stonehenge’s FIRST general manager, because it may have had one back in 2500 B.C. when it was first built. Hell, there could have been a whole line of them. Applicants should send their résumés via messenger owl to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, care of Rubeus Hagrid.
Thanks to InkedDreams, who’s already got the job in the bag but will hire you to do all the work she’s supposed to do, but for a fraction of the pay.
As more developers are receiving their pair of Google Glass, the tinkering with the device is heating up. One developer found a very interesting easter egg within Glass itself, which introduces you to the entire Glass team.
The steps to reproduce it are fairly simple:
Settings -> Device info -> View licenses -> Tap the touchpad 9 times -> Tap Meet Team
Here’s a video demo, including the neat sounds that happen as you keep tapping:
The neat part about the photo is that you can see the entire 360-degree panoramic image by moving your head around. This was hard to show in the MyGlass screencast, since it lags a little bit. We’ve learned that Mike LeBeau, Senior Software Engineer for Google X, is the one who dropped the hidden gem into Glass’ software. He’s appeared on TechCrunch before in a <a target="_blank" href="“>hilarious Google blooper reel.
The team photo has Google co-founder, Sergey Brin, front and center.
I’m sure that more of these easter eggs will pop up over time, but this one is particularly cool since it’s the first time that I’ve seen a panoramic image on the device since I started using it. This functionality could be something that isn’t exposed in the Mirror API as of yet, but once it is, it’ll be a fun one.
[ See post to watch video ]
Spotting a BlackBerry among the sea of iPhones and Android phones out there is now a rare occurrence. Those who remain faithful to these once-iconic gadgets do so for good reason: A love of physical keyboards. But the BlackBerry’s lagging browser, antiquated operating system and lack of apps made users envy other devices.
Next month, people will finally get the BlackBerry they wish they had: A device that combines the features of a modern smartphone with a physical keyboard. I’ve been testing the BlackBerry Q10 for the past seven days, comparing it to its predecessor, the BlackBerry Bold 9900.
This device is expected to cost $ 249 with a two-year contract, which is more than many smartphones. It will be available from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint by the end of May. It had a couple of app quirks, though updates before release are expected to fix these. BlackBerry still lags behind competitors with just over 100,000 apps available last month. I especially missed some of my favorites like Flipboard, Pinterest and the NPR app. And the Q10’s 3.1-inch screen is limiting compared with the 4.7-inch and 5-inch screens on the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, respectively. But this new BlackBerry’s browser races along and its camera features will impress.
Physically, the Q10 bests the Bold with a slightly bigger touchscreen that measures 3.1 inches, diagonally. To make room for this screen, the Q10 sacrifices two features. First, its keyboard runs straight across rather than in the more comfortable, broad U-shaped curve like on the Bold. Second, the Q10 lacks a track pad, the below-the-screen square that functioned as a precise cursor. In about three days, though, I got used to working without these features.
The Q10 comes in white and black.
The Q10’s keyboard is smartly used for more than just typing emails. From the home screen, typing the first few letters for commands like “text message Katie” or “Facebook” pulls up related functions. This feature is called Instant Action. And some 200 keyboard shortcuts let users navigate around the Q10 more quickly. Onscreen menus subtly display what keys to press for shortcuts.
As you type, common misspellings will be auto-corrected. You can even turn on keyboard predictions, saving you a few keystrokes by showing words on the screen that you might be typing next. A tap on a word adds the word to your sentence. I found I could type faster without using onscreen keyboard predictions, though in some cases I could select predictions for nearly an entire sentence.
The Q10 runs on the latest iteration of the BlackBerry 10 operating system, which made its debut last month on the full touchscreen Z10. This latest version of the BlackBerry 10 OS is souped up with features even the Z10 doesn’t yet have, like new notification options for contacts and fine cursor control and navigation.
The BlackBerry 10 operating system is responsive and fun to use. A list called the Hub organizes all notifications related to emails, social networks and apps in one place. The Hub can be quickly checked with a left-to-right swipe from the home screen, or by swiping up and right from within an app. Contacts are integrated with social networks, adding images of your friends to the system.
Just type the first few letters of a command and Instant Action, above, pulls up the function, such as BlackBerry Messenger.
Apps can be minimized into smaller squares by swiping up from the bottom of the Q10 screen. I grew so comfortable with this gesture that I accidentally tried to use it on my Android smartphone.
In several instances, Facebook’s in-app notifications were delayed and only appeared when I opened the Facebook app. BlackBerry said an update to the Facebook app due out this week would enhance this app. I also had trouble with the Skype app: In two tests, I could see video from the caller but he couldn’t see me though my video was on.
Battery life on the Q10 was impressive. I used it repeatedly for entire days without running out of juice. This included a weekend in a remote area of North Carolina when my cell signal was roaming and several car rides when I used BlackBerry Maps for navigation.
I wasn’t able to formally test the speeds of the device I used, which ran on AT&T’s network, because AT&T is still testing the Q10 on its network. But voice calls that I made around Washington, D.C., and Kirkland, Wash., sounded clear, and Web browsing worked without a problem.
The Q10’s 8-megapixel rear-facing camera is loaded with high-end features, including Time Shift, which captures multiple shots of people and lets you piece together a photo where everyone looks good. Other features include burst mode, enhancements that edit photos and filters that can be added after capture.
BlackBerry World, the marketplace from which apps can be downloaded, looks slicker and runs faster than previous iterations. I downloaded and used a bunch of apps for the Q10, including Skype, The Wall Street Journal, YouTube, the Guardian, the New York Times, the Weather Channel, Kayak and Angry Birds Star Wars.
Along with the Facebook and Skype issues, I found that a health-tracking app and a Sudoku app didn’t work well. BlackBerry attributed this to pre-release app issues.
The browser on the Q10 was super fast, and I found myself selecting links in emails, tweets and Facebook updates that I would have avoided selecting on a Bold — and even on newer smartphones’ browsers — because of slow load times. The Q10 browser has features like an adjustable default font size and a Reader view. Websites that run Adobe Flash can be viewed by clicking a button that enables Flash.
For plenty of users who gave up on BlackBerry years ago, the Q10 probably won’t change their minds. But for those of us who love physical keyboards and want a keyboard paired with the full functionality of a serious smartphone, the Q10 delivers.
Write to Katie at katie.boehret@wsj.com.
Related Posts:
Now available ! (Google Play, iOS, Windows Phone, Windows 8) To be announced soon on Mac. Next gen 3D beat’em up from Realtech VR. http://www.realtech-vr.com… Video Rating: 4 / 5
Related Posts:
Back in 2010, our own John Biggs rightly described Parrot’s AR.Drone as ” the coolest thing [he had] seen in a long, long time.” Since then, Parrot has launched the AR.Drone 2.0 and while it’s still a very cool gadget, quadcopters have come a very long way since 2010. Last month, the folks at DJI, who mostly specialize in developing unmanned aerial systems for commercial use, sent me one of their consumer-oriented and GPS-enabled DJI Phantoms to review.
Most quadcopters are aimed at hobbyists and take a good amount of assembly and at least some experience with flying remote-controlled aircraft. The Phantom, which has a list price of $ 849 but currently retails for about $ 680, comes mostly pre-assembled and is extremely easy to fly, thanks to its built-in compass and GPS module. Thanks to having GPS built-in, the drone always knows where it is in relation to you. So depending on the mode you are flying in, every input you give will always be interpreted in relation to you and not in relation to where the front of the aircraft is (here’s a video that explains how this works).
The other cool thing about the GPS mode is that the drone can hover in position even if it’s windy. It’ll just auto-correct for the wind, thanks to its built-in autopilot (you probably want to turn this mode off when you are trying to take a video, however, as the constant corrections will show up in your videos).
This autopilot also kicks in if the Phantom loses its connection with your remote control if it flies out of reach or your remote runs out of battery, the drone itself is very low on battery, or because you turn it off to see if the autopilot actually works. Once the failsafe mode kicks in, the drone will simply fly up to 60 feet, fly back to where it first took off and land. I actually tried this and it worked surprisingly well. The drone touched down just about 3 feet from where I launched it. When you spent $ 700 on the drone and another $ 300 or so on a GoPro 3 Silver, that’s a nice feature to have.
The Phantom is a clear step up from something like the AR.Drone. Its communication distance is just under 1,000 feet and a maximum horizontal speed of about 32 feet per second and a descent speed of close to 20 feet per second. That’s fast and feels even faster if you are just learning how to fly it.
These specs show that this isn’t just a toy but can actually be used for some pretty impressive aerial photography. Indeed, since the Phantom launched earlier this year, a whole ecosystem has sprung up around it that provides owners with everything from improved propellers to cases and multi-axis camera gimbals. A gimbal, by the way, isn’t a must, but if you want to take really stable videos without the so-called “jello” effect (here’s a pretty extreme example of that), both a gimbal and some well-balanced after-market rotors will surely help.
Here is a video I took with the Phantom and a GoPro 3 White over the weekend:
The Phantom’s battery lasts just under 15 minutes, so you probably want to buy at least a second one, given that the package only includes a single 2,200mAh battery and a charger.
If you decide to get one of these, by the way, make sure you read the instructions and watch this series of videos before you turn it on. The Phantom may look like a toy and is easy to fly, but this is a pretty high-end piece of technology and there are a few things you need to know and do before your first flight.
With the 2013 NAB Show just around the corner, it’s a fair bet that DJI will announce a few new products in the coming days and we’ll make sure to keep a close eye on this company.
- gizmodo dji phantom
