iPhone Article Zone

Readdle Docs

Rarely do you find such a versatile, functional app in the App Store. Readdle Docs is pretty much the only document storage/reader app you’ll ever need—the viewer is clean and functional, grabbing documents from a variety of sources is easy, and you can’t beat the interface or the vast array of features. Readers take note: if you ever need to handle documents on your iPhone, Readdle Docs is the reigning champ.

Importing Your Files
The first step with any file management app, importing files can be a headache depending on the range of choices available. With Readdle, you’ve got a lot of options. You can import files from a MobileMe iDisk account (either yours, or a public one), Google Docs, Dropbox , Box.net, or filesanywhere. Readdle also gives you a free 512 MB online storage account with your purchase of the app. Files can be downloaded from any of these sources, or you can connect your iPod as a wireless drive and transfer files straight from your computer. You can also use the built-in browser to download files from the web. It’s all quick and easy. No complaints here!

File Types
Readdle supports PDFs, Microsoft Office, and Apple iWork file types, as well as image files. Again, pretty much what you’d expect; if you need a non-supported document format, just print it out as a PDF. (I recommend the free doPDF utility.)

The Viewer
This is where Readdle really shines. I’ve tested the viewer fairly rigorously—I’ve read three novels on it so far—and it performs consistently and well. One tap brings up the interface, which otherwise stays invisible and out of your way. Here, you have the option to lock the screen orientation (a godsend!), add or jump to a bookmark, scroll through, or—if it’s a plain .txt file—make changes to the text. The reader handles large files fairly well. From time to time the app would freeze for a second or two, but scrolling through my ebooks was mostly a pleasant experience. The “BookReader settings” aren’t as varied as you’ll find in other, more specialized apps (there’s no inverting font and background colors, for example) but you can still change the font and its size. All formatting was perfectly preserved, and I really can’t fault the viewer for anything except the occasional lag.

It’s All About the Details
All the nice touches are here, too; for example, the app automatically opens to the last document and close to where you stopped. Many of the awesome features aren’t immediately obvious. For example, you can forward any email with attachments to a special address and have those attachments show up in your Readdle storage account. You can password-protect your files, and save entire webpages for offline reading. The interface is easy on the eyes, even if the icons don’t quite look native. Readdle is a mature app, and it shows.

Overall
I’ve used numerous document viewers on my iPod, but none of them are quite perfect. Readdle isn’t flawless, but it’s so incredibly close that I can’t imagine using anything else. For me, the Dropbox integration seals it as an amazingly easy method of keeping all my documents close at hand; your mileage may vary depending on what sorts of files you need to carry and how large they are. Still, if you ever need a document viewer or file manager app, Readdle is my number-one recommendation. It’s a complete, complex workhorse of an app with a broad feature list, good performance, and a solid interface. What more do you want? For $4.99, Readdle Docs is an easy recommendation.

Scanner Pro

It seems the number of document scanning apps in the app store is slowly beginning to increase, as developers have (finally) identified the need for a utility which allows portable, on-the-go document/image scanning. Personally, this is a Godsend for me, as, until now, I had no way to scan and post old, embarrassing family photos of my siblings on-line (Now, I have many app solutions to choose from. One of these is Scanner Pro, a member of the Readdle document and file management app family.

Scanner Pro claims to transform the iPhone into a portable scanner, allowing one to scan multi-page documents, email them and even upload them to Dropbox, MobileMe iDisk or any other WebDAV enabled server. In addition to Evernote integration, it also boasts the ability to scan documents, business cards, receipts, notes and whiteboards and subsequently email them, all using special algorithms to enhance image quality and make the scan as readable as possible. Nothing we haven’t already heard (at least in theory). Does Scanner Pro deliver?

The very first thing I noticed when opening Scanner Pro, is it’s “New Document” menu/ interface:

It’s refreshingly clean, straight-forward and not confusing and the icons are all labeled, instructing you exactly where to go. Similar apps I’ve reviewed were clunky, confusing and non-linear. This is not the case with Scanner Pro, which also contains a built-in user guide.

Scanner Pro’s main screen is also clean, linear and intuitive. You can choose an existing document or press the “+” in the bottom-left corner to enter the “New Document” screen (above). Pressing “?” brings up the User Guide and the IP address is displayed at the bottom of the screen:

The only preset image settings within Scanner Pro’s main “Settings” are the ability to turn “Enhanced Image” on/off and the choice of using “Grayscale” by default. All other image options present themselves after the image is imported, during the “Preview” process, allowing you to make the proper adjustments after the image/document is initially scanned and before it’s final “process.” Users can make the correct image adjustments in “real-time,” (including changing the page size and image orientation) without having to rescan the image/document repeatedly, using different image setting variables. Simply choose the adjustment(s) you want to make (contrast, brightness and grayscale) and use/move the slider accordingly. After a second, the image is processed accordingly and the changes are displayed:

The “Preview” menu also features “undo” and “redo” options, making it much easier for the user to make corrections to the image. After processing the final scan, users can save the document in Scanner Pro, send it to Evernote or save the image to the Photo Library.

While Scanner Pro does not possess such advanced image processing features such as automatic perspective and rotation correction, it does feature advanced image/edge detection. Users simply tap anywhere on the screen to move the crop lines to their desired/target location. After taking/importing images (from the Camera Roll/Photo Library), Scanner Pro allows you to crop the image by dragging the corners of the image to your desired location. This feature is precise, but, like similar apps, the crop lines are sensitive to touch and I often had to move the line several times before I got it to stay in its proper spot. This issue in Scanner Pro is far less pronounced when compared to similar apps.

Because I’ve no tolerance for “sissy” applications, I went straight for the Achilles heel of those scanner apps I’ve tested/used; one area where similar apps have consistently failed: Scanning text-heavy documents.

The first document I scanned was a page from a W-9 tax form and I was amazed at the results:

The subsequent PDF scan was clear and legible. Additional scans would produce the same results. Scanner Pro: 1. Similar apps I’ve tested: 0. I was able to combine these scans, thanks to Scanner Pro’s “user-friendly,” linear interface, into a multiple-page PDF with relative ease.

Next, I scanned an imported image from my Photo Library. Here’s the original:

Here’s the scanned JPG I imported using Scanner Pro:

As you can see, aside from lighting enhancements, the image’s integrity is, by far and large, uncompromised.

Scanner Pro is capable of scanning any type of documents ranging from simple one page letters to multi-page documents. It’s “user friendly” interface allows it’s user(s) to add, move, delete pages and even combine pages in landscape and portrait orientations. These files can, in turn, be emailed, uploaded to WebDAV or any FTP application and can even be transferred to your Mac or PC via WiFi. I was able to connect to my PC via WiFi and by typing my IP address into my browser’s address bar with no problems.

In addition, to protect sensitive documents, users can assign passwords to documents/ images by tapping the lock icon on the bottom bar.

Other features included with Scanner Pro is a built-in PDF viewer which allows the user to preview his/her scans exactly the same as they will look on desktop computer, the ability to upload scans to online file storage venues, such as MobileMe iDisk, Box.Net, Humyo and any other WebDAV enabled online storage, the ability to print, via “Print n Share” provided by EuroSmartz (owners of both apps [Scanner Pro and Print n Share] can scan and then print documents to any printer via a Mac or PC), the ability to sync scans with Dropbox-enabled computers and the ability to upload processed images directly to an online Evernote account.

All said, As a result, I use Scanner Pro exclusively and it comes in handy often. At $6.99, it’s priced within the same range of other scanner apps in the App Store. I recommend Scanner Pro to anyone looking for a portable scanner app or anyone needing to scan, view or share documents (regardless of where you are), “on-the-fly.”

QuickOffice

On almost every modern computer there is likely to be a modern document creator. It’s a given. Be it Microsoft Office, OpenOffice or iWork, there’s no shortage of competition, and that isn’t just restricted to desktop computing side of things. Mobile versions of such software have boomed in recent years, and there’s one name that has appeared at the top of the list long before Apple’s App Store made its debut on July 10 2008: QuickOffice.

Symbian (S60, UIQ and QUI3), Palm and Android are just some of the platforms that QuickOffice have built on in the past. These mobile versions of Microsoft Office were widely accepted to be amongst the best, and it turned smartphones into very-smartphones. Now it is the turn of the largest app store for third party applications known to date: Apple’s App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch. Never before has the mobile market had so much choice with just one range of mobile devices. So, has QuickOffice rocked the App Store in the way that was expected? Well, it’s currently #1 in the Business section and that’s no easy task. Especially at $12.99 (£7.49).

QuickOffice is a fully-fledged, fully-featured mobile office application. Word, Excel and Powerpoint are some of many names that QuickOffice is built for. It bridges the gap between desktop and mobile writing, bringing the power of MS Office to the power of the iPhone. How does it do this? Well, let’s take a look at each individual part of the app.

QuickWord
The power of Word (or Apple’s Pages) in the power of the iPhone. As you can expect, it’s not exactly the same: 2GHz vs 400MHz and a 20″ screen vs a 3″ one (we’re assuming that you do live in the 21st century and that your computer is more powerful than your iPhone). But it does hold up well in our tests on an iPhone 3G and 3GS, where loading times of documents were minimal and navigating the application was relatively easy. It’s not just for viewing, it’s for editing and creating too and this is where the real creativity of the application shines. An impressive feature list includes:

* Text styles and sizes (bold, italic, 8-72pt)
* Fonts (Arial, Times New Roman and Verdana to name three of seven in total)
* Paragraph indentation and alignment
* Bullet/number lists
* Text wrapping

QuickOffice introduced cut/copy/paste before Apple did, and to top it off there’s a search and auto-save built in. Presently, you can view and edit .txt, .doc and .docx. But what use are these features if it has some ugly GUI or sluggish interface? Thankfully, this isn’t the case – even on our app and music filled iPhones. In fact – it’s quite the opposite. Loading times were quick and the GUI is a favoured minimalist approach; six options at the bottom reveal text formatting; indentation; a keyboard; bullet points; undo; and search. Over 80% of the screen is devoted to the document you are working on – as it should be with any professional application. QuickWord certainly holds up against its rivals in the App Store for documents.

QuickSheet
QuickWord’s sister is the mobile version of Microsoft Excel (or Apple’s Numbers), QuickSheet. Excel is the spreadsheet application of choice globally, meaning QuickSheet must hold up well on the iPhone. It does. Like its sister QuickWord, QuickSheet has an impressive array of features:

* Extensive formatting (bold, italic, symbols and cell background to name a few)
* Multiple sheets
* Full calculations
* Formulae dynamically updated
* Portrait / landscape mode

Preliminary testing was a painless procedure, and the only problem that we encountered was Apple’s keyboard. Having to constantly change to the = and + side of the keyboard made inputting data into cells a little bit lengthier-a-process than we had hoped. Detailed function categories show no shortage of formulae: Math & Trig; Financial; Logical; and Information to name four of nine. Without sounding try, there are pages worth of formulae and statistical methods to work with. Due to the extensive amount of options, the sheet itself covers around 70% of the screen. The bottom menu holds six options: text formatting; text wrapping; sheets; change rows/columns; undo; and search. Cut, copy and paste is in there too. Overall, QuickSheet is yet another no-holds-barred section of the mobile office application. Impressive. Presently, both .xls and .xlsx are editable.

Edit and send attachments, on-the-go
As mentioned in an earlier blog post, QuickOffice have added their piece-du-resistance to the ever popular mobile office application. Now, one can forward attachments to a designated QuickOffice e-mail address (free) and edit them on-the-go. Whilst the re-sending is hardly ideal, the attachment can be sent back again from the e-mail address the attachment was received from. It’s the best option there is on the App Store, and it should work with all mail servers. A welcome alternative to the void that has existed since day one of the iPhone release.

iDisk, MobileMe and drag/drop integration
For those who use Apple’s premium service, MobileMe, there’s an extra set of features that make this application that little bit extra more than you thought it would be. QuickOffice have integrated iDisk support, allowing you to view, download and edit any compatible files (which is no short list – .txt, .rtf, MS Office and iWork files are all in there). Our tests on an iPhone 3G did show some signs of sluggishness on Wi-Fi, but this time was more than acceptable based on how much this application is trying to do. Files can be moved from iDisk to iPhone and vice versa. Furthermore, your iPhone can be assigned a local IP and can appear as a networked drive on your mac or PC, allowing you to drag and drop files to and from the iPhone.

Conclusion
By all means, this application has it all. The experience was a tad slow on our app and music filled iPhone 3G, but for an application that requires so much power that should be expected. If you can live with nuisances that aren’t necessarily QuickOffice’s fault, such as proper e-mail attachment editing, it is an application that should be worthy of consideration. If you’re just a Word (Pages) or Excel (Numbers) user, QuickOffice have separate applications at reduced prices. We’d recommend going all out and buying the all-in-one, should you choose to. Its number #1 in the Business section is justified: this is one of the most powerful applications I’ve seen yet.

An application like QuickOffice has a lot to live up to. It must integrate well and be a seamless experience. It must work out of the box with no set-up menus or time wasting. It must, quite simply, work. And it does. We are thoroughly impressed. 5 stars.