The folks behind the QuickOffice suite for Android have designed a completely retooled app for tablets running Google Android 3.0 Honeycomb. The new app takes advantage of all the extra screen real estate you get on a tablet (many new tablets have 1280 x 800 pixel or higher resolution screens), by giving you multi-pane views.
The folks at Laptop Magazine got an early look at the new office suite for Android at Mobile World Congress this week. It should be available for download this spring.
The file browser has a three panel view. On the left you can choose your source, including local files, documents stored on Google Docs, or Dropbox. The middle panel shows a list of folders. And the panel on the right shows individual files. The overall experience is much more like using a desktop file manager than one designed for a smartphone (or perhaps like using three smartphone browsers side-by-side).
The presentation app lets you view or create PowerPoint slides. On the left side of the tablet you’ll see a list of slides which you can rearrange by dragging and dropping, while tapping on any slide brings up a full view on the main window.
QuickOffice also lets you create and edit Word documents using the on-screen keyboard or voice input. The Honeycomb toolbar at the top of the page gives you context-dependent options. For instance, if you select some text with your finger, the cut and paste controls will appear. The app supports pinch-to-zoom and other gestures, and you can scroll through documents by tapping and holding the side of the screen to bring up a list of pages to flip through.
The spreadsheet app has also been redesigned for tablets, making it possible to not only view but edit and create documents and share them via email or other methods. The app doesn’t display Macros, but it will keep them intact if you edit a file with Macros and save it for use on a desktop computer.
Some parts of the new QuickOffice app look a lot like the version designed to run on the Notion Ink Adam tablet. But the Adam currently ships with Android 2.2 and can’t yet take advantage of some of the more advanced features in Android 3.0 Honeycomb such as context-dependent toolbars.
You can check out a video from Laptop Magazine after the break.
Needs to be OpenDocument Format (not just MS formats)- Does it do this?
Just an FYI so that you can correct your article: The Adam’s preorder tablets have Andriod 2.2 on them, but is fully able to support Honeycomb and will be upgraded to it once it is released. Adam was designed to be used with Honeycomb and will be able to take advantage of all of it’s advanced features.
Didn’t mean to imply that it was a hardware issue. But for now the Adam is an Android 2.2 tablet.