Yes Of Course the Office Mobile Apps Require Office 365 on iPad Pro

It should come as no surprise that iPad Pro owners will need an Office 365 subscription to get the full functionality of Microsoft Office Mobile apps. The software giant has long communicated which devices require this and which do not. And the iPad Pro does.

That is, you will need an Office 365 subscription to edit documents with the Office Mobile apps–Word, Excel, PowerPoint–on iPad Pro. This means Microsoft is treating iPad Pro as it does PCs like Surface Pro 3, and not like other iPads and tablets.

This requirement was first reported by Peter Bright at Ars Technica, though to be fair we already knew this. That is, Microsoft previously explained which devices would require an Office 365 subscription to get Office Mobile document editing. And the iPad Pro, with its 12.9-inch display, meets those clearly-stated requirements:

If you have a tablet/PC with a 10.2-inch or bigger screen, you will need an Office 365 subscription to get the full functionality of Office Mobile.

I’ve written about this many times. For example, back in April, I wrote“Microsoft did previously differentiate free/freemium from paid by screen size, with devices with a screen 10.1 inches or smaller getting Office for free.” In July, I noted that “with Office, the dividing line between getting the full functionality of the Office mobile (or “Office Mobile”) apps for free is 10.1-inches. That is, if you are running a phone or a tablet/PC with a screen size at or under 10.1-inches, not only can you download and install the Office Mobile apps, but you will be able to use their full functionality for free. But if you have a tablet/PC with a 10.2-inch or bigger screen, you will need an Office 365 subscription to get the full functionality. If you do not have such a subscription, you can’t use any editing features.”

And seriously, anyone buying Apple equipment like an iPad Pro is used to paying. So nothing to see here.