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Office Sway for iPhone, Microsoft’s software for creating mobile-friendly interactive presentations, is now available beyond the shores of Australia and New Zealand.
Sway, also available as a browser-based cloud application, is a departure from traditional desktop presentation software tools like Microsoft’s own PowerPoint. Using drag-and-drop authoring tools, users can combine images, videos and text into Web-based “Sways” that scale to any screen size. “It’s a new way for you to create a beautiful, interactive, Web-based expression of your ideas, from your phone or browser,” boasted the company during the technology’s debut in October.
In December, the company incorporated Bing Image search. “In response to requests from users (particularly in the education space) about wanting to be able to search for Creative Commons licensed images directly from the Internet, we’ve integrated Bing Image Search functionality into Sway,” announced Microsoft’s Sway group in a Dec. 4 statement. “Now you can search for images tagged with Creative Commons licenses within Sway.”
Also last month, the company added undo and redo functionality as well as PDF import capabilities, among several other tweaks. In addition, Microsoft released an iPhone 6-optimized version of the app in New Zealand and Australia.
Targeting the iPhone 6 is a potentially shrewd move. Apple’s latest smartphone, along with its phablet-sized sibling, the iPhone 6 Plus, set new sales records for the Cupertino, Calif.-based device maker after hitting store shelves on Sept. 19.
Apple would go on to sell 10 million units during the first weekend. “Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a Sept. 22 statement. “We would like to thank all of our customers for making this our best launch ever, shattering all previous sell-through records by a large margin.”
After implementing “some performance and network quality improvements,” more countries are now able to take the iPhone app for a spin, announced Microsoft in a statement.
“Customers in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, India and a number of other countries where English is an official language, in addition to Australia and New Zealand, can now download Sway for iPhone from the App Store,” said Microsoft.
The Sway app is compatible with iOS 8 and above. “You can log in with the same Microsoft account on the Web and Sway for iPhone to access and edit your Sways across devices,” added the company.
As before, Microsoft is soliciting the public’s help in determining which direction Sway’s feature set is headed.
“Similar to opening Sway Preview on the Web more broadly in December, we’ll use Sway for iPhone’s wider availability to continue responding to feedback and improving the app experience,” said Microsoft. “We have a dedicated forum on UserVoice specifically for gathering feedback related to the Sway for iPhone app.”