Mobility can be a
wonderful thing, until one has work to do, and doesn’t have the right tools. At
least today, the question of file formats pretty much boils down to “old Office
or new?”–referring, in turn, to the classic binary Office formats, and the
Office OpenXML formats that debuted in Office 2007, and for Mac users, in
Office 2008. Although many tools exist that work with the binary Office
formats, finding something that works with both binary and OpenXML documents is
another matter altogether. That’s where Quickoffice shines, thanks to an array
of mobile services and software for all major mobile platforms.
Quickoffice’s
office mobility applicationss are available in three versions: the full-blown
Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, Quickoffice Mobile Suite and Quickoffice
Connect. The last of that group simply offers remote file access, and some file-viewing
capabilities, but makes up for its limited feature set by being a free
download; it is only available for iPhone and iPod touch among the iOS
platforms. Quickoffice Mobile Suite, which is also available only for the
small-form-factor iOS devices, adds editing capabilities to its repertoire and
costs $4.99. Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite, on the other hand, is available
for both iPad and the smaller iOS devices, and for $9.99, one gets advanced
editing capabilities and access to cloud-storage providers, including Apple’s
MobileMe service, Dropbox and Google Docs.
Quickoffice
Connect Mobile Suite, which I tested on both iPad and iPhone, allows users to
transfer files via WiFi, or to mount an iOS device as a drive over a WiFi link.
The versions I used (1.1.0 for iPad and 3.3.0 for iPhone) became available
before Apple released iOS 4.2.1 in late November, and therefore did not support
the AirPrint wireless printing feature of the iOS update. I would be surprised
if that functionality were anything but No. 1 on Quickoffice’s priority list
for feature enhancements.
The suite’s
Quickword component allows users to perform a significant range of frequently
used operations on an existing or new Word document. Text can be formatted,
made bold or italic, or underlined in a range of font sizes. It automatically wraps text to reduce
the need for scrolling left or right, will count the number of words in a
document, and works with bulleted and numbered lists and paragraphs to adjust
the indent level when desired. Automatic save and restore functions will give
most users confidence that their changes are incorporated in a document, but
only when that’s the preferred outcome.
The Quicksheet
spreadsheet editor has similar tools for adjusting the appearance of the data
in a file, and includes an advanced calculation engine that allows the dynamic
updating of data as cells, columns, rows and ranges are copied, deleted, pasted
or otherwise edited. It allows users to search for text in a worksheet or to
add, rename, delete and reorder individual worksheets within the current
spreadsheet.
I found
Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite to be responsive when performing what I
consider “bread and butter” edits to word processing and spreadsheet files. Unlike
the iWork for iPad applications, which Apple sells separately, all of the
Quickoffice functions are in a single application. Making it even more
attractive, the suite works well on iPhone, whereas iWork applications are
restricted to the large-format iPad. After spending almost a week with Quickoffice
Connect Mobile Suite, I didn’t find anything to dislike about it.
Enterprise Mobility News & Reviews 
