With Apples Pages and Numbers and Keynote supporting iCloud, iPad users could feel that there is no longer any need to use any Microsoft Office products. But, you may occasionally wonder “wouldn’t it be nice if I could open this document in Microsoft Word, or this presentation in PowerPoint?” And for those who want to do that, now you can.
This is made possible by OnLive Desktop and its associated, inexpensive iPad app. The iPad allows you to open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents that you have uploaded to your OnLive account. You can also create new documents using the app. OnLive uses the 2010 versions of the Microsoft apps I’ve mentioned herein.
You can also use Windows Paint for creating/editing graphic files, and there is a sticky notes app you can use for reminders. There are also a few games you can play.
You can sign up for a 2 GB storage account for free, or you can soon choose the pro account ($9.99 per month) which gives you 50 GB of storage, priority access, and the ability to add other Windows applications. This sounds especially promising, since there are two Windows products that Apple has never matched: Access and Outlook. Being able to install those (and/or FrontPage and OneNote) would make OnLive very attractive.
I found the experience of setting up an account and uploading some files to be very easy. The iPad app is also very nice, and easy to use. I did have a bit of difficulty finding the keyboard at first (it resides in the upper left corner), but that was the only difficulty I had and it was minor.