Fans of iOS have waited for some time but finally Microsoft has now launched MS Office on the Apple iPad. The suite comes with Word, Excel and PowerPoint and owners of the iPad can view documents for free. However if they want to create or edit a document they will have to pay a yearly subscription. But it seems that there is a loophole when it comes to the activation mechanism, which detects if you have a license when using the services.
CNET said that you can enjoy all the features of the premium service even if you don’t take out the subscription. A subscription would allow four members access to the account, which means that you could install it on five devices through the same account and it is legal. If you have the iPad and use the same credentials you can use it on more than five devices.
All you need is to know someone who has a valid Office 365 account so that they can log into Word or any of the Office apps on the iPad and then the tablet will automatically be authenticated for all of the Office apps for future users, without having paid for Office 365.
Microsoft does know about this as it tracks the iPads that are running on the same account. However there hope that people will not do such a thing. “Similar to our commercial use rights, we do not strictly enforce the limit on tablet installations, but trust that our users respect and understand the device limits outlined in the EULA [end user rights agreement],” a Microsoft spokesperson said.
This is not new and is called piggybacking and is often seen with streaming services, including HBO GO.
Would you exploit it?
