OneNote for iPad now available to download

By Tom Warren, on 12th Dec 11 8:34 pm with 44 Comments

OneNote for iPad

Microsoft announced on Monday the immediate availability of OneNote for iPad.

Version 1.3 of OneNote for iOS now includes a version especially designed for Apple’s iPad devices. “A recurring request from our customers has been for a version that can be used more easily on the iPad’s larger screen,” admitted Microsoft’s Michael Oldenburg in a blog post on Monday. “We’re happy to announce that today’s new release of OneNote for iOS devices includes a version that’s tailored for the iPad.”

The iPad version is identical in features and look and feel to the iPhone variant. Microsoft has included the following updates in OneNote version 1.3 for iOS:

  • Support for iPad and iPad 2
  • Localization into several new languages and markets
  • Tabbed user interface
  • Quick note creation in the Unfiled Notes section
  • Table rendering
  • Improved Windows Live sign-in experience
  • Option to sync notebooks only over a Wi-Fi connection
  • Integrated upgrade option

OneNote for iPad follows rumors that Microsoft is preparing an Office suite for the iPad. The software giant is working on adapting its Microsoft Office suite for use on Apple’s popular tablet iPad device, according to recent reports. Microsoft’s plans for Office on iOS are matured according to our own sources but will not be made available until Microsoft’s metro style Office 15 is available, due next year. Microsoft is also readying updates for Office for Mac 2011 to further improve its OS X Lion support, including full-screen, autosave and Lion versions support. Microsoft is also addressing a number of bugs in its existing Office for Mac 2011 applications. Microsoft’s future Office for Mac edition will include support for the company’s SkyDrive service and will likely be distributed on Apple’s new Mac App Store.

Microsoft’s OneNote for iPad is available over at Apple’s App Store.

OneNote for iPad

  • Anonymous

    I  know many people don’t like that Microsoft is providing these services to other platform but i happen to like the road Microsoft is heading to. 

    • Anonymous

      and what road is that? towards being non profitable?

    • http://adamhaider.com Adam Haider

      Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar company. Worrying about profitability is the last thing you should be worried about, unless of course you’re a shareholder.

      The main thing that was holding Microsoft back as a competing brand is that they didn’t understand that the future would be platform agnostic instead they had a “me, me, me” mentality, it’s now something consumers expect. 

      Now that it’s nearly 2012, they obviously realise their mistake and are expanding their brand which will hopefully lead more people into the Microsoft ecosystem of products— that’s what their hoping at least.

    • Anonymous

      LOL so I think you discredited your own statement by saying companies shouldn’t worry about being profitable. you realize MSFT doesn’t have engineers that work for free right? and those multi-billion dollars you speak of, where do you think they come from?
      and you say it is not about me me me. have you heard of this little company called apple? you know, makes MORE money than MSFT by doing exactly the opposite MSFT does: help their competitors.

    • http://twitter.com/hammeredpizza Louis Sandiford

      Like it or not, Apple is the market leader in the tablet sector.Microsoft and Apple (post Jobs) know that Google is the real enemy. Not working together to get rid of blatant patent infringement, an anti-competitive search monopoly, and privacy invasion is where the money would be lost.

      And – just a hunch here – but I’d expect Microsoft to be given something in return. Bing as default search engine on Safari would be nice. kthxbye

    • Anonymous

      well by that logic they should just close the shop and move to europe with nokia then. you don’t make friends with the competition, you kill them. If windows 8 is to differentiate from the ipad and do to the ipad what android did to the iphone, it needs to have what the ipad can’t get: MSFT apps. apple will make their own office note taking apps and sell them for pennies. MSFT needs to make sure windows succeeds for it makes them billions.

      selling a few copies of apps to ipad users is like exhanging real dollars for pennies. totally idiotic.

    • Guest

      The vast majority of MS’s revenue and profits for Office come from corporate agreements. Given the numbers of iPads pouring into enterprises, MS has two choices: don’t support it and let Apple’s own and other competitive iPad-based suites take hold, thereby threatening Office and the eventual resigning of those agreements, or provide support and for now with an eye towards taking back some tablet share later once W8 ships. In the enterprise they don’t sell Office as Word, Excel, Powerpoint. It’s Sharepoint, Lync, etc.

      If this great? No. Is it the best way forward given how badly they blew the mobile and now tablets markets? Yes.

    • Anonymous

      3rd choice:
      don’t help apple sell more ipads. Keep ipads being an IT nightmware that is hard to manage and lack enterprise level apps. court IT towards windows8 which is a full PC with full active dir and all the manageability IT expects and all the apps work. keep their enterprise monopoly, keep making billions.

      your choices are simply equivalent to giving up, close the shop and making a few bucks with a set of apps that eventually will just get copied by apple, pushed as first party apps and then it will be all over for MSFT. which is off course ridiculous given MSFT has over 1.5 BILLION pc users right now and their primary goal is to migrate them to win8, not ipad.
      It is a matter of what MSFT choses: be something, or like adobe, just fade into irrelevance as an app maker.

  • Anonymous

    “A recurring request from our customers has been for a version that can be used more easily on the iPad’s larger screen”…so we can stop buying windows and office. thank you MSFT for killing your two cash cows.

    • Anonymous

      Microsoft is a software/platform company, so how does providing software to a larger audience make them less money?  This is a great way for them to grow their customer base.  Mac/iPad users aren’t rushing out to buy Windows so they can use Office and/or OneNote; instead, they’re buying Office and/or OneNote on their Macs, and this provides a customer even greater incentive to consider OneNote since they can use it on their iPads, as well.  As a Windows/Mac/iPad/Windows Phone user, I am excited about this addition to the iPad app catalogue.

    • Anonymous

      yes as you said, they are a software platform company. key here is platform. helping apple sell more ipads kills their platform part. it is a basic concept. you’re exchanging dollars for pennies and giving apple 30% of the cut while fading into irrelevance. They already have over 1.5 BILLION pc users that are their customers. what exactly are they growing with this? If you’re mac user, you don’t care for MSFT. If you’re a PC user, they already got you. They are in fact shrinking their base by pushing them towards the ipad which apple controls.

      this is one step into a spiral down to irrelevance going from billions in revenues to pennies in the appstore. stupid.

    • Anonymous

      Windows is an operating system. Windows sales won’t slow down just because Microsoft makes software for Apple products. Office is a platform. It should be on the web, my phone, my tablet, my laptop, etc. and it shouldn’t matter whether I’m using IE/Chrome/Firefox/Safari, Windows Phone/iOS/Android, Windows/OS X, etc.

      Are PC users rushing to buy Macs just because iTunes is the most popular music player on PCs? No. Are Mac users rushing to buy PCs for Office or Zune? No, but I know many Macs users that have Office installed on their Macs, which only boosts Microsoft’s profits.

    • Anonymous

      Office is NOT a platform. windows is a platform. office is an application suite. Every ipad that MSFT helps sell is one less windows license it will sell in the future for it is one more customer that left them. Once you leave windows, why stick with office? Want to use it on ipad? sure use the web version. Want a first class native experience? it should be windows only to ensure they keep their primary cash cows flowing. This isn’t about being nice, this is about being profitable for without profit they won’t be able to make anything.

    • Anonymous

      You’re just arguing semantics. Office a platform, Xbox is a platform, Bing is a platform, Zune (as in, the services) is a platform. They can run independently of Windows itself, which is an operating system.

      People are going to buy iPads whether Microsoft wants them to or not. Microsoft is losing millions of sales by NOT having Office on the iPhone/iPad because they’re forced to use third-party Office imitations instead. The Bing for iPad app has done really well for Microsoft and has INCREASED the Bing user base. OneNote will help bring more OneNote users to the Office platform. Office for the iPad will keep people using the Office platform. Lync for the iPad, iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone will get more and more people using Lync. Why the hell would I use Lync on my Windows Phone if my colleagues with Androids and iPhone couldn’t use it? They’re not going to pick up a Windows Phone for Lync, instead we’d just find another solution that another developer would love to make.

    • Anonymous

      you should educate yourself

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computing_platform

      office is not a platform whatsoever. sure you can make plug-ins for it, but that’s about it. You cannot compare it to general purpose computing platforms like windows. Just what do you think an OS is all about? Its a platform so you don’t have to re-write all the kernel and machine interaction from scratch. Can you make a web browser in word? excel?. Office is an application suite not a platform. that is just ridiculous. Xbox is a platform for you can make apps and games for it using its SDK. bing is not a platform, it is a service offering a limited set of APIs to interact. Zune is not a platform, it is a service Zune itself is dead so it is moot. Azure is a platform.

      to your point, people will buy ipads regardless true. yet helping them sell more is stupid. Their goal should be to make the point simple enough: If you buy an ipad and expect MSFT first class software, you bought the wrong device. this isn’t about being nice, this is about competing.

    • Anonymous

      Basically, you’re missing the point that other companies will simply fill the application void that Microsoft leaves if it chooses not to grow its various platforms on other operating systems. Why do you think Spotify and Rdio get so much press when Microsoft has its own (and I would argue, much better) solution in Zune Pass?  Because you can’t use it on Macs, iPhone, iPads, Androids, etc.  A few of my friends would love to use Zune, but they’re not going to buy a PC and/or Windows Phone just to use it.

      Here’s another example: Google Apps doesn’t work as well in IE9, Safari, and Firefox as it does in Chrome. Office 365 works the same in IE9 as it does in Chrome and Firefox. As a result, I’ve considered moving my work to Office 365 from Google Apps because the platform seems to work across more browsers (which are kind of like operating systems). Lync being released on Windows Phone, Android, and iOS makes the deal even sweeter, but it’d be a moot point if MS ignored the other platforms and only released Lync on WP.

    • Anonymous

      and you’re missing the point that by selling more non windows devices they will just die. they either go with the ship or die death by 100 needles, or better yet, make a true competitor with first class apps people want and give all those that bought ipads one simple message: you bought the wrong device if you want our ware.

    • Guest

      Yeah, they probably didn’t think this through at all before releasing it. Good catch on your part. /s

    • Guest

      @neonspark:disqus 

      Office is not a platform? You’re kidding right? There are thousands of 3rd parties that have integrated with Office specifically because it is also a platform.

    • Anonymous

      Actually, this is the opposite. software like this is making sure businesses continue with office and other Microsoft products.

      Would a business use OneNote and SharePoint if it cant access their notes from everywhere, or would they look for another solution? Thats why Microsoft made iOS versions of OneNote

      Would a business continue to use Exchange and Outlook if they couldn’t get their emails easily on the go, or would they look for another solution? Thats why Microsoft licenses ActiveSync

      Would a business buy a Lync Server if it only had PC to PC communication, or would they look for another solution? Thats why Microsoft is releasing Lync Mobile for iOS and Android

    • Anonymous

      “Would a business use OneNote and SharePoint if it cant access their notes from everywhere”

      yes, because MSFT would tell them to get win8. otherwise they bought the wrong platform. what if you buy linux? call MSFT. they tell you, get windows silly rabbit.

      “Would a business continue to use Exchange and Outlook if they couldn’t get their emails easily on the go, or would they look for another solution? Thats why Microsoft licenses ActiveSync”

      first of all, MSFT interacting and making their protocols open is different than putting the office suite elsewhere. The only reason they did it was because the goverment FORCED them too.

      They are pefectly happy telling you: sorry, buy our products if you want your stuff to work, the way apple does it. Sure they want exchange to work with other stuff, but they would much rather you NOT.

  • phil jay

    What’s going on? It’s not metro?!

    • J A

      Why would it be metro when the OS it will be used on is not or do you think metro is just thrown all around without conformance with the underlying OS?

    • NativeFloridian

      That doesn’t keep apple from making it’s applications (namely iTunes) look like it is running on an apple even when it is running on windows. 

    • Dude

      Well, Xbox Live app for iOS is Metro…

    • phil jay

      bing on ios is metro for example and it looks totally awesome. Metro is a platform independent language that can integrate and that brings simplicity everywhere if done right

  • Lolhan

    what a ipad? a toy?

  • http://doctorwhofan98.wordpress.com/ doctorwhofan98

    I hope they make a metro and/or touch friendly version of Office for Windows 8 tablets… it would be pretty stupid if they only good tablet experience for Office was on an iPad.

  • http://twitter.com/greenlink Green Link

    and android support is where?

    • Anonymous

      Who cares about android. ^^ trollpost

  • Anonymous

    Free? Really?

    • Anonymous

      It’s free but not unlimited use though

  • Win8metroguy

    Looks amazing. I hope the Win 8 Metro version will look just as good. 

  • http://www.zunecards.net/index3.php wetworker

    I just hope all these apps will be available for windows 8 tablets at launch next year.

  • Windows Fan

    What would suck would be that Microsoft decides to charge Windows 8 tablet users $100+ for Microsoft Office on their tablet yet they give out free software to the iPad. I am expecting the same software in WP7 to be in a Windows 8 tablet but a little better for free.

    • Anonymous

      I think they lost their minds in redmond.

      windows8, the tablet that doesn’t have anything the ipad doesn’t, it is not an ipad, and in no way has anything exclusive over the ipad.

      great strategy MS. so I’ll buy it because of the tiles? yeah right.

    • http://www.facebook.com/amaclaren Adam MacLaren

      well, unless by anything you mean even the simplist things like using a flash drive, or differentiating between a stylus and finger input, or connecting to any printer …

    • Mojok

      Well the reason you are charged the amount of a FULL blown office program is just that. Windows 8 is not some measly iPad or tablet it is a new age of pcs and is a a full operating system using full programs, and might come with a office app nothing is set in stone. And why not give other small os’s a nice office app if they don’t do it someone else will, and it just goes to show that Microsoft is a little more generous than the next company.

  • http://www.techblitzblog.blogspot.com Daniel Herzig

    What would make this great would be the ability to use handwriting and inking… make it happen MS!

  • http://circuitsoft.tumblr.com CircuitSoft

    Come to the Windows side, we have metro.

  • Cavan Watson

    Doesn’t render ink

    • Anonymous

      You must try Aqrate Outline

  • Hotmail Alias

    What a silly debate this has turned out to be!

  • Nasher Dezno

    I just put it on my iPad and its ok, only Sky drive integration is really compelling, otherwise there are several other app in the app store that are better.