
Google makes Quickoffice for Android and iOS free for all - NewsFlash
http://thenextweb.com/google/2013/09/19/google-makes-quickoffice-for-android-and-ios-free-for-all-bringing-microsoft-office-editing-to-the-masses/
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sahaskatta
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.

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devx
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.

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snogglethorpe
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).

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footpath
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Quickoffice used to allow signing in from
multiple services? I remember using an older version of Quickoffice that
allowed logging in with Dropbox, SkyDrive, etc. while this new version appear
to only work with Google accounts.

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ZoF
You're correct, Quickoffice did allow login from multiple sources in the past.

Obviously Google would remove that feature as they now own Quickoffice, I
would have been FAR more surprised if they kept it in.

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wslh
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.

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ZoF
What kind of document did you open? A PDF???

It's working fine for me, .doc/.docx extensions open in QuickWord as expected.

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wslh
A Google Drive document.

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dragonwriter
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.

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SEMW
> 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 of document it is? No problem, you can tell by...
Open it up in one of the two apps and tell me what the file extension is. The
file extension. The three of four letters at the end. Wait a sec, forget that,
native google docs documents don't have file extensions."

["Well, does the icon look like--no, never mind, the icon is the same for
both, four white lines in a blue square." \- _I was wrong about this, word
files do have a different icon_ ]

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

"Hold on, I'll drive over..."

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dragonwriter
> 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.

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SEMW
> 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.

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dragonwriter
> 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_.

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oridecon
does it works with ODF files? is it fully compatible with libreoffice or are
we getting boxed on closed formats again?

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oscargrouch
Whatever i see things like this, it reminds me the way the greeks used to see
the gods.. as jokers messing around with humans, much like politicians do to
us nowadays.. (cause this must be a joke from the gods)

in the eighties the allmighty IBM get crushed by the rookie microsoft because
it didnt see the new software wave comming.. and from this new market its
arch-enemy was born

now microsoft is falling into pieces, because microsoft in the nineties, didnt
see the internet revolution comming (or was afraid to ask), and its killer
born from it.

google its not only taking what once was a market dominated by microsoft, but
are dominating also in the internet arena.. and if you guys see well .. they
have created a "internet as a platform", buying and acquiring all over the
ones who create little niches in this BIG massive platform..

my question is.. it will have internet life outside of the google internet
platform? and worst yet..

it will have life outside of the corporate internet the took all over? (the
people who knew the internet in the beggining of times know what im talking
about)

before us all were considered products and advert targets?

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ZoF
You question is whether the internet will consist of anything other than
Google? Yes, it will.

The internet remains the internet; Google is not creating "the internet as a
platform".

Fractured English is usually quite tolerable as long as it's somewhat
coherent, but when it comes in the form of a nonsensical rant I find it
exponentially less so.

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oscargrouch
Im not telling, that they ARE already "the platform" im saying that they are
trying, that they are slowly becoming.. and if you try to measure in what
proportion google services, servers, softwares and platforms make part of the
internet, and all the things, software and services you have installed in your
machines that are, or consume things from google, will you still think this is
a triviality?

Also, there are the inner mechanics of capitalism, with its acquisitions and
fusions.. and quickoffice its a example of that..

on the other side, the small companies wont stand against delicious buying
offers of billions of dollars..

Capitalism its all about monopoly, isnt? so.. 2 + 2 = ..

Eric schimidt maybe is a small guy, but what a appetite.. :)

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ZoF
My interpretation of your point:

>"I'm not saying that they are ALREADY "the" platform, I'm saying that they
are trying to be, and are slowly becoming just that.

>If you try and measure what portion of the internet is made up of Google's
services/products/infrastructure and what portion of your own personal device
usage depends on those services, would you still think this isn't something to
worry about?

> Also, something about capitalism, words that have little to do with it...
> and quickoffice is an example of that.

> On the other hand small companies will accept large buyouts.

> Capitalism is all about monopolies isn't it? So 2+2 = 'obvious point you
> should be getting'

> Schmidt Quip

I understand your point, and to some degree I agree that it's worth thinking
about, but certainly not worth lamenting over. Expanding infrastructure and
buying up companies in areas of interest are obvious choices for a successful
company.

Capitalism is about competition, not monopolies, and as long as Google has
competition in the form of Amazon/Microsoft/etc. there's no point wasting time
worrying about a potential future monopoly on "the internet".

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nonchalance
In the age of HTML5 Touch events and websockets, I was hoping to see a web-
based office suite. I guess google settled on the native app route.

~~~
yareally
Latency on mobile for editing would be kind of sketchy much of the time I
would think. Maybe not so bad on wifi, but elsewhere you're lucky to get pings
that are sub 200ms on 3G networks.

Also, the stock browser on Android (the non Chrome one) and also the one built
into Android Webviews in apps has no websocket support.

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znowi
Trying hard to counter-PR the NSA partnership :)

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devx
More like it was bound to happen just about now, and a year after they
purchased it.

