“For customers who want to open more than one Word, Excel, or PowerPoint file at once, the standalone apps can better handle side by side and windowing scenarios that modern tablet and mobile operating systems support,” said Samer Sawaya, a principal product manager at Microsoft.
Microsoft has started apply the change across its Office apps for iOS and Android, beginning with OneDrive. Outlook will follow this month and in November, while the timing for Teams has yet to be confirmed.