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QuickOffice

Business, Reviews, docs, documents, excel, idisk, iwork, microsoft office, mobileme, ms office, numbers, office, pages, quickoffice, rtf, text, txt
Developer: QuickOffice
PRICE: $14.99
VERSION: 1.4.0

iPhone Integration Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Speed Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars
User Interface Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Features Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Overall Rating: 4.88 out of 5 stars

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:IMG_0286

* 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:IMG_0282

* 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.

IMG_0276iDisk, 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.

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