14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft Office remains one big cash cow for the Redmond-based software giant, so it goes without saying the company wants to improve this product as much as possible on all platforms where it’s available.
And the reason is as simple as it could be: the better everything works, the bigger number of paying customers, so it makes sense for Microsoft to improve Office not only on Windows but also on rival platforms like macOS.
This week it was the turn of the iOS version of Office to get an important improvement. More specifically, Microsoft has updated its Office apps with support for a mouse on iPad, which means Apple users can now be even more productive when using Microsoft’s productivity suite.
Originally announced last year
The feature was actually announced last year, so it definitely took a while for the software firm to make it available for everybody in the Apple ecosystem. The company hasn’t released any statement regarding the new update, though the changelog included in the App Store confirms Office for iOS now supports mouse input on the iPad:
Support UI Text Interaction: Use the trackpad from the all new magic keyboard to interact with your document. Use a Pointing Device: Connect a trackpad or mouse to your iPad for another way to interact with Word.
Microsoft Office apps for iPhone and iPad require at least iOS 13, and while they can be installed free of charge, the full capabilities can be unlocked with a subscription.
And this is exactly what Microsoft hopes it’d happen, as the number of Office subscribers keeps growing on a daily basis, especially now that so many of us have to work remotely.
To get mouse support in Office apps on the iPad you need to be running at least version 2.45.