Google Docs App Available For Android–Don’t Get Too Excited
Google has announced the release of a Google Docs application for Android devices. I’ll give you the PR but the initial comments to their post have a common theme:
Docs Viewer and Editor are web-similar and very unuseful. There is no zooming for simple documents, only for sheets and images. Then I can’t see docs in offline mode, only list of them. What is cache setting for? Offline viewing end editing is soo important
Been waiting for a google docs app for so long. This is a big disappointment. The initial interface shows potential. But editing still uses the horrible web interface.
No better than trying to edit them with the browser, get the same screen. Click edit, it loads the document, but no ability to edit. Same options at the bottom like on the webpage, mobile or desktop. Desktop will end up not loading. Does this app actually work for anyone?
Anyway, here’s how Google describes it:
Increasingly, people are using mobile phones to access information — from email to web browsing to editing documents. Part of getting work done on the go is being able to easily access, edit and share content, which is why we’re happy to announce the new Google Docs app for Android.
With this new app it’s easy to filter and search for your content across any Google account, then jump straight into editing docs using the online mobile editors. The app also allows you to easily share items with contacts on your phone, right from within the app.
The Docs app also allows you to upload content from your phone and open documents directly from Gmail. You can also add a widget to your home screen for easy access to three core tasks: jumping to your starred documents, taking a photo to upload, or creating a new document with one tap.
And my favorite feature: Using the app and your phone’s camera, you can turn photos with text into editable Google documents with the power of optical character recognition (OCR). Just create a new ‘Document from Photo’ or select the camera icon from the widget, and your converted document will appear in your documents list shortly after you snap the picture. You can also convert photos already stored on your phone by sharing them with the Google Docs app. OCR does a pretty good job capturing unformatted text in English but won’t recognize handwriting or some fonts – stay tuned, it will get better over time!
The Google Docs app is currently available in English and works on Android 2.1+ phones. Try it out by scanning the QR code below or by visiting Android Market.
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