We heard all the way back in November that Microsoft would launch an Office app for the iPad, and it would seem that the big day draws even closer. According to an unverified image captured by The Daily, a version of Microsoft Office for iPad was caught running on one of Apple’s tablets.
Now, we still don’t have an official launch date but the report claims that Redmond is about ready to submit this thing for approval from Apple. The image seems to reveal what we’ve been expecting — a metro-style UI that should fit in swimmingly with all the other metro UIs MS is sending out into the world, like Windows Phone, its other iPad apps like MSN and Bing, Xbox 360 and the forthcoming Windows 8 OS.
As you can see, there are tiles for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, along with a button to create a new document. You’ll also notice, if you look close enough, that there are search and Messenger icons, which will presumably send you to Bing and Windows Live Messenger respectively.
There’s no word on an Android version of the Suite, but the Daily reports that MS’s OneNote iOS app will get a revamp to reflect Microsoft’s decidedly metro direction.
Update: So, remember when I mentioned how this photo is unverified? Well, apparently CNET has confirmed with Microsoft that The Daily’s image is a fake. Now, things like this can be faked pretty easily, but at the same time I would imagine that Office on the iPad will look quite a bit like what we’re seeing.
Update 2: Turns out The Daily is sticking by their image, and they were nice enough to tell us that. I’m glad they did — this just seemed too legit to be a fake.
