<p>The scuttlebutt about an upcoming version of Office for Apple's iOS devices seems solid. But you don't need to wait for Microsoft to get around to releasing something. A startup called CloudOn already has an iPad app which lets you run the real Windows editions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, hosted on one of its remote servers, for free. It competes with OnLive's OnLive Desktop, and also runs on Android tablets. It works quite well.</p><p>And today, CloudOn is releasing a new version for the iPhone. It joins numerous other iPhone apps which can edit Office documents, including Apple's own iWork programs and Google's Quickoffice. But unlike everything else, CloudOn isn't Office-compatible: It is Office a copy running on a distant server which you can use on your phone as long as you've got an Internet conection.</p><p>Given that Office has lots and lots of elaborate features and was never designed to run on a pint-sized touchscreen, how is that even possible? As with its tablet variants, CloudOn has customized the Office ribbon, focusing on the most useful features and making sure that icons are big enough to be reasonably touch-friendly. It's also integrated the suite with Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and new in this version Microsoft's Skydrive, letting you access documents stored in the cloud.</p><p>CloudOn assumes, reasonably enough, that the iPhone version will be used for viewing as much as for editing, so files open up in a viewer mode; you tap to edit them. Once you do edit, though, you have access to some surprisingly powerful features: Word, for instance, has revision marking and the ability to insert tables. No file importing or exporting is involved, so there's no chance of documents losing their formatting or getting otherwise munged along the way.</p><p><a href="http://techland.time.com/2012/12/19/cloudon-microsoft-office-on-the-iphone-right-now/">Keep reading...</a></p><p>Read also:</p><p><a href="http://thenextweb.com/apps/2012/12/19/productivity-app-cloudon-brings-microsoft-office-to-the-iphone-now-offers-skydrive-integration-on-ios-and-android/">Productivity app CloudOn brings Microsoft Office to the iPhone, SkyDrive ...</a> (The Next Web (blog))</p><p><a href="http://blog.laptopmag.com/cloudon-version-3-0-brings-free-microsoft-office">CloudOn Version 3.0 Brings Free Microsoft Office</a> (LAPTOP Magazine (blog))</p><p><a href="http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/19/cloudon-3-0-brings-microsoft-office-to-iphone-ipad-mini-nexus-7/">After 3 Million Downloads, CloudOn 3.0 Now Brings Microsoft Office To iPhone ...</a> (TechCrunch)</p><p>Explore: <a href="http://news.google.com/news/more?ncl=dGjKR7OLJcvcbYMGNJE535NjHuugM&ned=us">9 additional articles.</a></p>