Update - after doing my homework to get excel to work for me via Microsoft account I now realise that it will never work for me on a subscription free basis as I have upgraded to an iPad Pro which is 10.5 and the free excel is only available for devices that are 10.1 or smaller. What a shame, it was very useful, I understand why they have this restriction but wonder if it isn’t time to expand the size limitation as it is highly unlikely that those using it for business would rely on a device as small as a 10.5 iPad. Previous post: Been using it for years and now stopped working, never required a subscription for basic functions before, it would appear one is required now. I have paid a lot of money for the office suite on my laptop and don’t see why I cannot extend that use to my iPad. In any event I would prefer a one off purchase than yet another monthly amount going out of my account.

I was having “fun” creating spreadsheets for the last month. It was ok in terms of functionality but had a lot of bugs like cell selection randomly not aligning with what your finger touches — amongst clunkiness and many other small bugs like this. Despite this, I managed to create a hefty spreadsheet over a few weeks for a personal project. I no longer can access it because the app keeps freezing on the initial screen or when I open up the spreadsheet it’ll load a small portion of it then the rest remains white and freezes. The iCloud icon is stuck on endless loading. I’ve tried updating my iOS, reinstalling the app, clearing data etc. nothing is working. I just renewed my 365 subscription for this and I’m pretty annoyed that the thing I’m paying for isn’t working. This app definitely needs a lot of fixing so be warned. *Update*They have made it even worse after the update. I have now lost everything in multiple workbooks. Luckily, I made backups but the app straight up deleted everything inside multiple workbooks. The issue happens if you’re using a file saved on your phone. If your app crashes (which it does frequently) and you’re in the middle of making changes to it, the next time you open that workbook literally everything will be wiped clean. I’ve also had to delete and reinstall the app 3 to 4 times a day because the ability to copy paste into the formula bar disappears. You can’t even move to a new line when typing. Absolutely terrible quality and they want you to pay money to use it. You’re basically paying to be frustrated, stressed and to lose all your work. If you’re using this app, make backups regularly.

I would rate Excel app on iOS as no more than 2 stars. My reasons for this rating areThe app provides only a subset of the features of the windows excel application. For example, basic pivot tables cannot be created to summarise content.In more recent times the app has been changed to require a subscription in order to do any updating on even the limited functionality it provided. That is, on my older iPad it was possible to edit, but my newer devices are now being limited to read only without a subscription.In comparison with the Apple Numbers app which I have recently been trying out, a) the latest Numbers version now provides the ability to create basic pivot tables to summarise content, and b) allows updating on both my iPad and iPhone without a subscription. So, the few personal spreadsheets I maintain have moved from Excel on windows to Numbers on my iPad/iPhone. Overall, the limited excel functionality of Excel on the iPad / iPhone isn’t worth it since similar/better functionality is available elsewhere, e.g Numbers, without a subscription.

Using Excel to help stop the senseless invasion of Ukraine, has been my effort to stop the Kremlin Gremlin’s invasion of Ukraine, I’ve been using data from the Kyiv Independent and various websites and input from other Twitter users to assess costs of Russian losses in military hardware and personnel costs and publish it in Twitter. I keep up a spreadsheet, often using my iPhone, or iPad, with a keyboard if at home, every few days. When I think back to the early versions of Micromodeller and Multiplan before Excel came along, using large PCs with floor disks, this achievement of being able to use the power of supercomputers of the 90s in my hand mustn’t be overlooked. That reminds me, update due - been lazy for a couple of weeks. No such luxury in Ukraine!