App Store Apps

Microsoft updates PowerPoint with remote Apple Watch functionality

Microsoft on Tuesday issued a refresh to its PowerPoint presentation software on the App Store, adding remote functionality for Apple Watch users.

The newly added PowerPoint Remote feature allows you to control slides running on your iPhone, such as starting the slideshow and easily navigating to the next and previous slides.

In addition, the Watch app provides you with an at-a-glance overview of the elapsed presentation time while putting the current slide number and total number of slides on your wrist.

Bing for iPhone gains private mode, revamped Image search, app links in search results and more

Microsoft today refreshed Bing for iPhone, adding more than half a dozen useful new features and enhancements, beginning with the Private Search Mode which will not remember your search history and sites you have visited.

Other new features include better management of your search history settings, the ability to launch native iPhone applications right from the search results page, inline previews of clips in Video search and more.

Microsoft’s Halo: Spartan Strike and Halo: Spartan Assault hit iOS

Thursday, Microsoft Studios unleashed a pair of new triple-A games for the iPhone and iPad unto the App Store. Both Halo: Spartan Strike and Halo: Spartan Assault pit you against an insurmountable Covenant force and are now available at $5.99 each.

Spartan Strike files as a top-down shooter which makes you a Spartan supersoldier tasked with battling evil forces.

Spartan Assault is the original Halo top-down shooter that plays through the historic first missions of the Spartan Ops program featured in Halo 4 as Commander Palmer.

Search images faster without typing in Bing

Windows maker Microsoft today announced that Bing for iPhone and Android now makes it easy to find images faster than before, without typing or by typing less.

The new search experience is now live on iPhone and Android devices in mobile browsers and lets you search images with “no typing required to discover more”.

Microsoft releases ‘Office Delve’ app for iPhone

Building upon its already enormous library of iOS software, Microsoft on Tuesday released 'Office Delve' for iPhone. The app serves as a mobile client to Microsoft's Office Delve service, which connects Office users to relevant people and documents.

The official tagline of the iPhone app is "find and discover documents through people you work with." Microsoft says the app will allow you to see what you and your colleagues are working on across Office 365 and suggest relevant documents to you.

Microsoft releases Office Lens scanning app for iPhone on App Store

Microsoft on Thursday launched a brand new scanning application for the iPhone, called Office Lens. Available free of charge in the App Store after first launching on Windows Phone a year ago, Office Lens is a handy capture app that turns your smartphone into a pocket scanner.

The app lets you crop, straighten, enhance and makes pictures of whiteboards and documents readable.

Scans of your docs are automatically saved to OneNote and are editable on any device, though you can save them into OneDrive or your preferred cloud storage service.

OneNote for iPhone gains note previews, Mac edition improves collaboration

Thursday, Microsoft made the iPhone and Mac edition of OneNote even better by adding previews to help quickly find notes on the Apple smartphone while bringing out more notebook sharing enhancements on the Mac.

Note previews are comprised of a headline and an excerpt of the text and include a small thumbnail to help visualize its contents.

These snapshots are readily glanceable from your page list and your Recent Notes list and even incorporate handwriting so it's really easy to quickly locate the note you want to read or edit on the go.

OneNote for iPad gains handwriting, stylus support with palm rejection and OCR for images

After updating the Mac edition of OneNote with enhanced optical character recognition (OCR) features and other goodies yesterday, Microsoft on Thursday announced that users of OneNote for iPad can now extract text within all images that are added to notebooks saved on OneDrive.

In addition, the iPad application now has handwriting support, a top requested feature which permits users to highlight documents, scribble notes or just draw sketches with their finger. With this update, handwriting is now available in OneNote across all platforms.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint for iOS gain iCloud storage integration

Windows maker Microsoft today announced it's bringing out new cloud storage integration to Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps for the iPhone and iPad, including the iCloud file picker on iOS and Office Online integration for viewing and editing.

The much appreciated support for Apple's cloud-based storage permits customers to store their documents, presentations and spreadsheets to iCloud and access them on their other iOS and Mac devices.

Skype for iPhone introduces new chat picker, brings back URI support and more

Microsoft today released an update to Skype for iPhone in the App Store. In addition to general improvements, Skype 5.10 for iPhone lets you quickly call people and groups straight from a new chat picker: just tap on a new chat icon and choose who to talk to.

The update enhances Skype's dialer with a useful auto-complete feature that searches for Skype contacts as you’re entering a phone number.

Most importantly, the new version brings Skype URI support back to iPhones so third-party developers can again write apps that integrate with Skype.

Microsoft snaps up cross-platform calendar app Sunrise

Microsoft has just acquired the popular calendar app Sunrise. TechCrunch, which first learned of the deal, has pegged the value of the transaction at a cool $100 million.

Sunrise has an awesome iPhone and iPad app in the App Store. It's also available for the Mac, across other mobile platforms and in the form of a responsive, lightweight application which runs smoothly in a web browser.

Microsoft releases native Outlook app for iOS

Microsoft on Thursday released the official Outlook email client in the App Store (not to be confused with the native Outlook Web App for the iPhone). Optimized for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, the iOS 8-only app is based on Microsoft's $200 million purchase of the popular mobile email app Acompli.

Featuring a built-in calendar, comprehensive search features, gesture-based interface akin to Dropbox-owned Mailbox and support for popular cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft's own OneDrive service, it brings together the core tools you need to get things done in one sweet package.