Microsoft Office for iOS Updated With iCloud Drive Support

Microsoft today released an update for its suite of Office apps on Apple's iPhone and iPad App Store for users running iOS 8. The 1.6 updates bring, along with the usual bug fixes and performance enhancements, full support for saving and syncing documents via Apple's iCloud Drive service (via The Verge).

Microsoft says users of its most popular software like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint can now open, edit, and save their work to iCloud as a storage option in the "Places" section of each iOS app.

Microsoft Word
The additional storage method doesn't require users to have an Office 365 subscription and comes as an alternative to Microsoft's own cloud storage option, OneDrive. As pointed out by The Verge, light restrictions on a few file types may hinder iCloud's usage on Microsoft's iOS apps, however.

There’s also restrictions on filetypes, so while you can see a thumbnail preview of text in a document created with TextEdit on a Mac (stored on iCloud), you can’t access the document or edit it. Overall, it’s a fairly basic feature addition, but one that will please (and possibly frustrate) those who use iCloud on a regular basis.

Microsoft most recently added a similar feature to flesh out its iOS offerings with a partnership with Dropbox that let users open, edit, and save their documents using the popular document-saving cloud app. The Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps launched on the iPhone in early November, bringing free document creation and basic editing to the service.

Microsoft Word [Direct Link], Microsoft Excel [Direct Link], and Microsoft PowerPoint [Direct Link] can all be downloaded from the App Store for free.

Popular Stories

M5 MacBook Pro

Apple Announces New 14-Inch MacBook Pro With M5 Chip

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:07 am PDT by
Apple today updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, which is also available in updated iPad Pro and Vision Pro models. In addition, the base 14-inch MacBook Pro can now be configured with up to 4TB of storage on Apple's online store, whereas the previous model maxed out at 2TB. However, the maximum amount of unified RAM available for this model remains 32GB. Like...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

Apple Debuts New iPad Pro With M5 Chip, Faster Charging, and More

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:16 am PDT by
Apple today announced the next-generation iPad Pro, featuring the custom-designed M5, C1X, and N1 chips. The M5 chip has up to a 10-core CPU, with four performance cores and six efficiency cores. It features a next-generation GPU with Neural Accelerator in each core, allowing the new iPad Pro to deliver up to 3.5x the AI performance than the previous model, and a third-generation ray-tracing ...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
maxresdefault

Here's Everything Apple Announced Today

Wednesday October 15, 2025 3:54 pm PDT by
We didn't get a second fall event this year, but Apple did unveil updated products with a series of press releases that went out today. The M5 chip made an appearance in new MacBook Pro, Vision Pro, and iPad Pro models. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've rounded up our coverage and highlighted the main feature changes for each device below. MacBook Pro M5...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
14 inch MacBook Pro Keyboard

New 14-Inch MacBook Pro Has Two Key Upgrades Beyond the M5 Chip

Thursday October 16, 2025 8:31 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with an M5 chip, and there are two key storage-related upgrades beyond that chip bump. First, Apple says the new 14-inch MacBook Pro offers up to 2× faster SSD performance than the equivalent previous-generation model, so read and write speeds should get a significant boost. Apple says it is using "the latest storage technology," ...
Vision Pro M5 Announcement

Apple Updates Vision Pro With M5 Chip, Dual Knit Band, and 120Hz Support

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:14 am PDT by
Apple today updated the Vision Pro headset with its next-generation M5 chip for faster performance, and a more comfortable Dual Knit Band. The M5 chip has a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU with Neural Accelerators, and a 16-core Neural Engine, and we have confirmed the Vision Pro still has 16GB of RAM. With the M5 chip, the Vision Pro offers faster performance and longer battery life compared...
MacBook Pro M5 Screen

New MacBook Pro Does Not Include a Charger in the Box in Europe

Wednesday October 15, 2025 6:59 am PDT by
The new 14-inch MacBook Pro with an M5 chip does not include a charger in the box in European countries, including the U.K., Ireland, Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Norway, and others, according to Apple's online store. In the U.S. and all other countries outside of Europe, the new MacBook Pro comes with Apple's 70W USB-C Power Adapter, but European customers miss out....
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
airpods max 2024 colors

AirPods Max 2: Everything We Know So Far

Tuesday October 14, 2025 8:43 am PDT by
Apple's AirPods Max have now been available for almost five years, so what do we know about the second-generation version? According to Apple supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, the new AirPods Max will be lighter than the current ones, but exactly how much is as yet known. The current AirPods Max weigh 0.85 pounds (386.2 grams), excluding the charging case, making it one of the heavier...

Top Rated Comments

NIKKG Avatar
139 months ago
iWork is much better and free.
MS Office is total abomination of software no one needs it. Won't install even if for free.

You must be stoned, Jack.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Khaaaaaaaaaan Avatar
139 months ago
Good bye iWork...

...hello Office. Seriously, it's painfully obvious that MS has their sights once again on total domination in this space. Apple has done next to nothing for the iWork apps which IMO, were pretty nice on the iOS devices until MS released the current wave of Office for iOS apps. And given their recent actions in lifting restrictions on storage and use, I see iWork fading into oblivion unless Apple pulls a MAJOR rabbit out of their hat.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
NIKKG Avatar
139 months ago
M$ ain't playing around anymore, they going after Google big time. Good to see them make a comeback.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
landroverz7 Avatar
139 months ago
Now release Office 2015 for MAC with iCloud drive support and Apple bump up free iCloud storage from 5 to 20GB :D
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArtOfWarfare Avatar
139 months ago
...hello Office. Seriously, it's painfully obvious that MS has their sights once again on total domination in this space. Apple has done next to nothing for the iWork apps which IMO, were pretty nice on the iOS devices until MS released the current wave of Office for iOS apps. And given their recent actions in lifting restrictions on storage and use, I see iWork fading into oblivion unless Apple pulls a MAJOR rabbit out of their hat.

It's probably Apple's plan to fade into oblivion. I feel that a lot of the time when Apple makes free software, it's not because they want to make software, but because they want the other people making software to make better software.

Microsoft won't make a good web browser? Apple makes Safari. Google won't make a better maps app for iOS? Apple makes a maps app. Microsoft won't bring Office to OS X or iOS? Apple makes iWork.

Everytime it yielded the desired results. IE improved dramatically, plus Google made Chrome. Google dramatically improved their iOS maps app. Microsoft brought Office to OS X and iOS.

So I don't think Apple particularly cares about iWork or Apple Maps at this point. Safari... It's interesting that apple keeps updating it. I'm not sure why Apple hasn't just sat back and let Chrome take the lead.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kds1 Avatar
139 months ago
How do you save save a new document you've created in Word for iPad to iCloud? I can't figure it out. Seems that it's not possible.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)