Microsoft Excel is a free download from the App Store, but you’re going to need an Office 365 subscription to actually do anything besides read Excel files. Excel has also made some compromises to work on iOS, but these compromises hurt the overall experience to the point that we expect most people will find this version of the app inadequate. We recently dove into how Word adapted itself to the iPad and found it to have some compromises over the desktop version, but was ultimately a very capable app that would work for most people.

Microsoft’s Office suite of applications has been a staple in most people’s personal and professional lives for decades, and their introduction on the iPad several years ago felt like a turning point in the iPad’s quest to becoming a “serious computer.” Several years later, these apps have grown up and are better than they’ve ever been before.