The Tame Apple Press is having to eat its words after predicting that Microsoft’s Office on the iPad would be about as welcome as Brendan Eich at a gay pride rally. Microsoft’s Office for iPad apps have only been out a week and they’ve already hit 12 million downloads, which clearly means that Apple fans are desperate to get some serious software downloaded on their expensive toys.

Microsoft announced the giant download number via its ‘Office’ Twitter feed, thanking users for grabbing copies of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote from Apple’s iOS store. Of course Redmond could be over hyping the figures and it would have been interesting to know the download figures for each app, but Microsoft declined to give more info.

Looking at the US app store, Word for iPad is the leader, with Excel in second, and PowerPoint third. Microsoft’s “digital notebook,” OneNote, is a little behind, in seventh spot. Microsoft will be happy with the initial download figures, particularly if it can turn them into paid subscriptions. Users can view documents for free using the apps, but need to hand over $100 annually to unlock the apps’ editing functionality. The subscription also lets you create new documents.

Apple is also interested in the app's success. If it does well it will take a third of the money.