After being made available for free download, App Annie reports that Microsoft Word has become the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store for iPad and iPhone (although Facebook’s Messenger app has since taken over on iPhone). And other Office apps, such as Excel, are in hot pursuit.
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The app’s ascent to the Top Downloaded App throne follows last week’s pricing changes by Microsoft. Only as recently as last week, iPad users were required to subscribe to Office 365 in order to create new files and Microsoft had set limited features on iPhone.
Read more: Cloud giants Dropbox and Microsoft get snuggly for better Office integration
This is the same kind of thinking that saw Microsoft team up with cloud storage giant Dropbox recently.
Last week, Microsoft dropped the prices of its Office suite, updated the apps to include integration with Dropbox and toned down its restrictions on use as the company attempted to achieve an increased iOS market share.
Shooting up the download ranks is impressive for Microsoft Office, considering that for a long time it had alienated users and that Apple and Google had built their own apps and carved out a following of substantial users. On its way to number one, Microsoft Office had to nudge those apps out of the way.
Microsoft’s Office suite was first introduced to the iPad in March 2014 when it also topped the charts just a few hours after going live.
