Software Technology :: CloudOn Brings Microsoft Office to iPad

Probably the biggest thing stopping many users from switching to the iPad full time is the lack of Microsoft Office on the tablet. It might be a bloated, slow, convoluted mess that makes you want to toss your computer out the window whenever you use it, but Office–and particularly Word– are pretty much mandatory for many jobs.

Enter CloudOn, a combination of app and web service, which lets you create and edit Office documents using your iPad. It works by running Office-compatible software on the CloudOn servers, meaning you need to be online to use it. But as the server-session uses a native app as a front-end, you open mail attachments, say, with the usual “Open with” service.

CloudOn also pulls your documents in from Dropbox for editing, and sends them back when done. The free app has currently been pulled from the App Store due to overwhelming demand, but from screenshots you can see that the interface isn’t really very touch-friendly, and comes off more like a regular desktop app squeezed onto a small screen.

Still, if you really need to do some tracking of changes on the go, you might want to sign up to be notified when the app goes back in the store. I really think that the developers missed a trick by making this app free, especially as it uses some presumably expensive server-power. I’d pay $10 for it just to have it when I need it, and I hate MS Word with a passion.