Microsoft still hasn't formally announced its plans to bring Office to the iPad, iPhone, or Android devices. But there's new evidence that Microsoft has some form of the product in the works.
French website Mac4Ever found a bunch of references to Office apps designed for iOS, Apple's mobile operating system for iPads and iPhones, on Microsoft's own support website.
They appear in a list of product tags for support documents.
That's odd: Since Microsoft doesn't yet make Office for mobile platforms other than its own, there shouldn't be any support documents that apply to a product called "Excel for iPad."
(Here's an image of one of the references Mac4Ever found.)
So either someone at Microsoft made a weird mistake, or the mysterious day draws closer when Microsoft will release its popular Office suite for non-Microsoft devices.
Microsoft has long made a version of Office for Apple's Mac desktop computers, but in general, it has favored Windows as the main platform for Office.
About a month ago, The Verge reported that Office for iPad and Android would likely arrive in May and that these would be severely limited versions, allowing users to merely view documents, not create or edit them. To edit, iPad users will have to buy subscriptions to Microsoft's cloud app, Office 365, according to The Verge.
Office 365 subscriptions for document editing cost $6 a month or more per user, depending on features.
Given that Office is the No. 1 killer app that will make people want Windows 8 tablets—and it comes included in Microsoft's Surface RT tablet—the plan for Microsoft to only offer Office to iPad through Office 365 seems logical.
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