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Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

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Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#31

Post by dragonwriter »

SEMW wrote: post #27
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the app description, its for working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Anything else is outside its domain. Its not a replacement for Google Docs for working with Google Docs native formats.

> If you read the app description, its for working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice. "No no no, if it's a Word file you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green circle to edit it, if it's a native google document you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green hexagon to edit it." "You don't know what type…

> Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice.

"If you need to edit things in Drive, use the Drive app."

There are some use cases where the QO app makes sense, but its solving a fairly narrow problem that doesn't apply to most users.

> Well, does the icon look like--no, never mind, the icon is the same for both, four white lines in a blue square

What are you talking about? The icon for Word files in both the QO UI and the Drive app UI is a big blue W on a white square, and is nothing like the 3-long-1-short white lines on a blue square icon for Google Documents.

> Umm, well, open it in one of them, and if you can't edit it, open it in the other one.

The Drive edits Doc/Docx files; if for some reason you don't like using the Drive App to do that, you can switch to QO from the document opened in Drive by using the "Open in..." menu from Drive to open a document in QO.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#32

Post by SEMW »

dragonwriter wrote: post #31
SEMW wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you read the app description, its for working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice. "No no no, if it's a Word file you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green circle to edit it, if it's a native google document you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green hexagon to edit it." "You don't know what type…

> Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice. "If you need to edit things in Drive, use the Drive app." There are some use cases where the QO app makes sense, but its solving a fairly narrow problem that doesn't apply to most users. > Well, does the icon look like--no, never mind, the icon is the same for both, four white lines in a blue square What are you talking about? The icon…

> The Drive edits Doc/Docx files

I've just tried it, and no, it can't. On the webapp, editing is done by converting to google docs format; that option doesn't seem to be available on mobile. It can't even view them natively, if QO isn't installed it appears to show them in a web viewer. Only quickoffice can edit .doc/.docx's. But you're right you can open a .doc in QO from drive (assuming it's installed, it'll register an intent), which does alleviate the problem.

But it's still silly, and confusing for non-technical users, to have two similarly-designed office apps, published by the same company, which can each edit a mutually-exclusive set of document formats. And that using intents to edit works one way but not the other. I'll be surprised if they're not merged at some point.

On the other hand you're right about the icon. My mistake, I'll correct my post.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#33

Post by snogglethorpe »

devx wrote: post #11
sahaskatta wrote: post #4

After Apple began offering its office suite for free with all new iOS devices, Google's decision makes sense. However I now have both Google Drive and Quickoffice on my Android smart phone and tablet. These two products overlap a bit too much. They really ought to be a single app.

If you press the Google Drive button in QuickOffice, it will basically show you what you have in Google Drive, just like the Google Drive app. But yeah, not sure why they're keeping the Drive app around then.

Er, well, Google Drive is ... storage.

I don't think of it as an "office app" at all, and it would frankly kind of bizarre to have to use QuickOffice to get at the various tar files, html files, image files, etc, that I've put into G.D....

If anything they should really just share components, with Google Drive invoking Q.O. document editors as appropriate, and maybe a Q.O. app remaining as a thin "office-oriented" frontend (whatever that means).

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#34

Post by notatoad »

SEMW wrote: post #27
dragonwriter wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the app description, its for working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Anything else is outside its domain. Its not a replacement for Google Docs for working with Google Docs native formats.

> If you read the app description, its for working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice. "No no no, if it's a Word file you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green circle to edit it, if it's a native google document you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green hexagon to edit it." "You don't know what type…

if i click on a docx in the google drive app, it uses the intents system to open in quickoffice. its only if i try to open a google drive document in quickoffice that it has a problem. So if you have a technologically inept relative, the solution is simple - just tell them to use google drive for everything, and never use quickoffice.

which i'm sure is exactly what google wants. they want you creating documents in their format, not in microsoft's format. quickoffice exists to tick off the "MS Office compatibility" checkbox on spec sheets, not because google loves that file format so much. and office documents don't get the realtime collaborative editing or chat interface or any of the other stuff that drive documents get, so to reduce confusion about why some features are unavailable, it makes sense to keep it as a separate app.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#35

Post by dragonwriter »

SEMW wrote: post #32
dragonwriter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice. "If you need to edit things in Drive, use the Drive app." There are some use cases where the QO app makes sense, but its solving a fairly narrow problem that doesn't apply to most users. > Well, does the icon look like--no, never mind, the icon is the same for both, four white lines in a blue square What are you talking about? The icon…

> The Drive edits Doc/Docx files I've just tried it, and no, it can't. On the webapp, editing is done by converting to google docs format; that option doesn't seem to be available on mobile. It can't even view them natively, if QO isn't installed it appears to show them in a web viewer. Only quickoffice can edit .doc/.docx's. But you're right you can open a .doc in QO from drive (assuming it's installed, it'll regist…

> I'll be surprised if they're not merged at some point.

I would be too; it worth noting that doing separate things in overlapping-but-not-identical domains and then merging them over time (especially when one is an acquisition, like QO) isn't really unusual for Google (and increasing the overlap on the way to merger isn't unusual, either.)

QO's been around for quite a long time, and is a fairly recent acquisition. Its not a new offering, the news here is that its just been made free.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#36

Post by wslh »

dragonwriter wrote: post #30
wslh wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, give me a break. I installed Quickoffice acquired by Google to read documents. I don't assume that I need to read any description.

> I installed Quickoffice acquired by Google to read documents. I don't assume that I need to read any description. QuickOffice was always a MSOffice formats editing tool for mobile devices. Its never been a generic document reader. You assumed, for no discernable reason, that it was. Maybe you should re-evaluate your assumptions about the need to read descriptions of apps before you install and run them.

You make me laugh, seems like you follow first order logic in a human discussion.

Let me speculate what would happen if Google applied your thinking:

- You could not integrate Google Adwords with Google Analytics because there were part of different companies.

- Android could not integrate with Google Search Engine because it was only part of a mobile innitiative.

You can play yourself combining the acquisitions listed on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mergers_and_acquisition...

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#37

Post by gizmo686 »

eksith wrote: post #21
oscargrouch wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry about my english! i dont find bad being corrected since thats the only way i can learn with my mistakes? so no problem! thanks

No worries :) I agree with you that Google is moving into an area Microsoft used to be in with IBM, but I feel like Google, while it does nice things like this, is similarly going to the same location. There's nothing stopping from other companies from coming up with something similar; the problem for now is adoption. I'd like to find a document editor outside of the major competitors like Microsoft and Google, but t…

>We're already seeing other services crop up to fill the niche YouTube is filling.

The biggest feature of YouTube, in my opinion, is not the video hosting. Rather it is the content discovery mechanism which, even as a programmer, I can best describe as black magic.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#38

Post by wslh »

notatoad wrote: post #34
SEMW wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you read the app description, its for working with Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files. Imagine explaining this to your insert-technologically-inept-relative-of-choice. "No no no, if it's a Word file you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green circle to edit it, if it's a native google document you need to click on the hollow yellow-blue-and-green hexagon to edit it." "You don't know what type…

if i click on a docx in the google drive app, it uses the intents system to open in quickoffice. its only if i try to open a google drive document in quickoffice that it has a problem. So if you have a technologically inept relative, the solution is simple - just tell them to use google drive for everything, and never use quickoffice. which i'm sure is exactly what google wants. they want you creating documents in th…

I bet you and dragonwriter that Google will integrate both in the future.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#39

Post by notatoad »

wslh wrote: post #38
notatoad wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if i click on a docx in the google drive app, it uses the intents system to open in quickoffice. its only if i try to open a google drive document in quickoffice that it has a problem. So if you have a technologically inept relative, the solution is simple - just tell them to use google drive for everything, and never use quickoffice. which i'm sure is exactly what google wants. they want you creating documents in th…

I bet you and dragonwriter that Google will integrate both in the future.

i think they will too, but i think the point is that they don't want to. Microsoft office support in Drive is like SMS support in Hangouts. They know people want it, but it's an outside-the-ecosystem technology that they want to die, and they're hoping that if they hold off supporting it for long enough demand will go away.

Re: Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all

#40

Post by piyush_soni »

wslh wrote: post #10

After reading about the Quickoffice acquisition I was waiting for this moment. Google Drive has more features in the web than as a native application on iOS and Android. Edit: it's me or Quickoffice is complete crap? I tried opening a document in Google Docs and it opens as PDF! then I created a new document and it doesn't have headings, just like the Google Drive application.

I tried the same - opening a google doc, it "tried" to open that as a pdf, but displayed a blank instead. I waited, and quit the app.

Even if they don't support a format, they could at least display a proper message. "Format not supported". That's purely an overlook.

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