iPhone Excel, iPad Word, iTouch Powerpoint? In Search Of The Best iPhone & iPad Office Apps

I’ve become dependent upon my iPhone / iPad for everyday tasks. As long as Flash isn’t required I can do a ton of useful tasks from my iPhone. But increasingly I’ve encountered many times when I need to get a small task done editing a document – like a Powerpoint presentations or Excel spreadsheet– but the included iPhone or iPad apps did not provide the solution. What I need is an iPad Office Suite.

Say Julie (my partner) emails me a powerpoint deck that I and the exec team need to review.

I can’t get to my desktop computer but I need to review, edit, and send back the deck for the exec team to review. My primary concern is that I be able to open and edit the attachment. With the native viewer I can open and view the .ppt but my iPhone/Touch/Pad won’t let me edit it.

After a bit of research I’ve compiled a list of the best iPad apps that let you edit Office docs (including Powerpoint) from an iPhone or iPad:

1. AlwaysOnPC (http://www.alwaysonpc.com)

This is a great application that gives you full access to a Microsoft-compatible iPad Office suite.

You can also take care of everything in one place! Simply login to the Dropbox folder to get at your files stored online, or use the email client to open and edit email attachments in one location.

You can also check email or cloud storage services through, as AlwaysOnPC lets you browse with Firefox with Flash on iPhone or iPad.

Pros:

Totally compatible with MS Office no matter which app or platform: iTouch & Powerpoint slides, iPad & Word docs, or iPhone Excel spreadsheets; impressive doc rendering that works even with the most graphic-heavy Powerpoint presentations or chart-laden Excel spreadsheet; speedy opening and saving capabilities when working with online documents on a 3G network; Cloud storage access via native Dropbox Application or browser; one price gets you all Office applications and more. Copying and Pasting between different applications is a must-have.

Cons:

A bit of learning is required to get comfortable with the User-Interface; a 3G or WiFi connection is required to access the application

2. DataViz Documents to Go

DataViz lets us use a Powerpoint editor via an office suite for iPhone

Pros

Can be configured to access Dropbox and a couple other cloud storage services; acceptable mapping of features to the iPhone; I was able to open and edit files opened fine in Powerpoint again on my PC

Cons

Presentations with heavy pictures and graphs sometimes don’t render; can be slow opening decks over 1Mb; does not allow cut and paste function between other programs; a little pricey

3. VNC to your home or work PC

Several VNC programs are available for iPhone – Mocha, LogMeIn, and Ignition to name a few. Use these to access your work/home PC and any applications you have saved there

Pros:

No need to learn anything new – cut/paste between apps – anything you would normally do on your PC.

Cons

Setup on iPhone and home PC required – also requires a good amount of tweaking with settings and firewalls before functioning properly; internet required both for iPhone and home computer; Home computer must always be in “awake” mode – no one can use it and it can’t be in hibernate.

4. iWork suite from Apple

Apple has made iWork suite with Keynote, Numbers and Pages available in the Appstore for iPad. It takes fourth:

Pros:

It is possible to convert from Office into iWork files (.PPT/PPTx to Keynote, .Doc/x to Pages, .xls/x to Numbers) edit; beautiful interface

Cons:

Not compatible with iPhone/Touch; doesn’t let you save as a .ppt/.doc/.xls; costly at $9.99 per app; Learning curve on UI for Office users.

5. Google Docs

Google Docs is getting better, but its still incomplete as I don’t see a way yet to edit Powerpoint when accessing via a mobile device like iPhone.