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        Microsoft Releases Preview of Office Apps for Android Phones
        
        
        
			- By Kurt Mackie
- May 20, 2015
The preview versions of Office apps for Android phones are now available for testers, Microsoft announced on Tuesday.
Users must sign up with the Microsoft Office for Android community at this page  to access the preview. These apps, including Excel, PowerPoint and Word, are described as being "modern"  and "optimized for touch." Main menu choices are located at the  bottom of the app for easier selection by a person's thumbs while holding the device. 
The OneNote Office app seems to have been available sooner.  It's typically offered as a  separate download.
Office for Android phone testers can "read, review and  make edits on-the-go," according to Microsoft's announcement. Document creation  seems to depend on access to cloud storage services. Microsoft's announcement  indicated that testers can "create, open, edit and save files in the cloud  from your Android phone." The Office for Android phone apps will work with  various cloud-based storage services, including "OneDrive, OneDrive for  Business, SharePoint, Dropbox, Google Drive and Box." 
Office for Android phone apps are different from currently existing Office  Mobile apps, which may be more limited. For instance, Office Mobile apps just  permit the viewing and editing of documents. Office Mobile apps for Android  devices are still available for download at the Google Play store, though.  Microsoft plans to talk about its plans for the Office Mobile apps versions  later this year. It'll talk about them when it announces the general  availability of the Office for Android phone apps, the company indicated.
In addition to Office for Android phone apps, Microsoft  earlier released Office  for Android tablet apps, which is out of preview and generally available.  While both of these productivity suites are free to use by consumers, they require  an Office 365 subscription for business use. An Office 365 subscription is also  required to "unlock the full Office experience," Microsoft notes, at its  Google Play store listings.
The "complete mobile apps experience" is available  with the following Office 365 subscriptions: Business, Business Premium, ProPlus  and Enterprise E3 and E4 plans. The "premium" mobile features that  require an Office 365 subscription can be recognized via a dialog box when  people try to use the apps. They'll get a pop-up box indicating such after  clicking a feature on the Ribbon menu bar, according to Microsoft's  FAQ description.
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
        
            
        
        
                
                    About the Author
                    
                
                    
                    Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.