Sign in to Office Mobile

Launch Office Mobile for the first time on your iPhone or another compatible iOS device, and you'll have to see 4 screens (is this a slide presentation?) before you can even sign in! So Figure 1 displays all these 4 screens!


Figure 1: The 4 opening screens (or slides?)

Swipe to the fifth screen and you finally come face to face with the Office Mobile Sign In page, as shown in Figure 2, below.


Figure 2: The Sign In page, finally

OK, this page makes it obvious that you cannot achieve anything more now without an Office 365 subscription – and this screen provides you with 2 options – but actually option 1 itself has 2 options! Let’s explore these options:

1. You can sign in with your existing Office 365 credentials. Alternatively, if you have no Office 365 account, go ahead and sign up for a 30 day free trial at: http://office.microsoft.com/try/


2. You can also purchase an Office 365 subscription right here – since this qualifies as an App Store purchase, Apple gets to make some money too! Clicking the Buy Now button shown in Figure 2 opens a Buy page (see Figure 3) where the cost of an Office 365 Home Premium subscription is displayed using the currency of your country (highlighted in red within Figure 3, below).
   
   
   Figure 3: Buy Office 365 from the Apple App Store


3. If you click the Buy Now button on this page, you'll see a message window asking you to confirm or cancel the purchase (see Figure 4) – remember that the Apple App Store already has your credit card details – once you click Confirm, your money will be shared between Apple and Microsoft. And sorry for this screenshot with a rotated message window – Microsoft's Office Mobile app refuses to get to landscape orientation and Apple's message window refuses to do portrait! Probably nothing displays the lost love between Microsoft and Apple better than this orientation standoff!
   
   
   Figure 4: No going back after this message

Hopefully you made a purchase, or you already have an Office 365 subscription – or you made an informed decision to get a free 30 day trial of Office 365 – whatever option you chose, keep your Office 365 credentials ready at this time. Then this is how you proceed.

1. Click the Sign In button (see Figure 2, earlier on this page).


2. This will bring up the Activate Office screen, as shown in Figure 5, below. Type in the email address associated with your Office 365 account here – typically this is the address [email protected] – both XYZ values are to be replaced with your own values. Then click the Next button.
   
   
   Figure 5: Sign into your Office 365 account


3. In the next screen, type in your password and click the Sign in button. You will see a brief Configuring Office screen (see Figure 6, below).
   
   
   Figure 6: Configuring Office


4. And then you will see the Congratulations screen (see Figure 7, below) – yes, Office Mobile is now installed.
   
   
   Figure 7: Congratulations, Office Mobile is installed

In subsequent articles, we will look at how you can use Office Mobile applications and share content created within Office Mobile.