Microsoft to Merge Excel, Powerpoint and Word into One Office App for Android and iOS

Microsoft has officially announced at the Ignite conference in Florida, that it is starting to publicly test a new version of the Office app that pools World, Excel and the Powerpoint app. This app will be accessible for both Android and iOS. The final version of the app may release on Android and iOS platforms by February 2020.

The app is now launched as a public preview, and the Office app is there for Android users via the Google play store and the iOS users through Apple's iOS Test Flight program.

Microsoft says that with the new Office app users need not separately download each app. Now they will be able to create new documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. The users can also edit and view existing documents. You'll also be able to "snap a picture of a document" and make it into an editable Word file, create and sign PDFs, or "transform tables from a printed page into an Excel spreadsheet."

Notably, Microsoft's spokesperson also told that the new Office app would not be replacing the existing three individual apps. "We know some users may only need to use one of the apps, and it is the consumer's choice to install the app that best fits their needs. However, if you use all of the core apps, we recommend using this new Office app, as it means you only need to install one app – and it will take up less space."

These apps Word, Excel and Powerpoint have been pretty popular on both iOS and Android. On iOS, these apps rank among the top 25 productivity apps, and on Android, each of these has over 1 billion downloads.

Though, Microsoft has been facing some fierce competition from Google as Google provides its Docs, Sheets, and Slide apps, which are part of its GSuite productivity tools. When compared, the Google apps rank higher on iOS than the apps by Microsoft.