The Droid App I'm Looking For

[rowyn]

So I have decided to keep the Android smartphone, mostly because it was too much effort to look for a phone + provider I liked better. I probably make too many decisions based on this sort of unenlightened laziness.

Nonetheless. I have a T-Mobile myTouch 3G Slide running Android 2.1 update 1. (I am not particularly keen on hacking about to get it to run Android 2.2).

I would like to have an app that could view, edit, and save Google Docs, particularly spreadsheets and word documents. My old Sidekick autosynced all data with the server, which meant that (apart from the fatal crash of October '09), all data was automatically backed up. I am unthrilled at the prospect of having to do manual backups; hence, my desire to use Google Docs. The Gmail app does autosync with Gmail, which is great. But I dislike the way it handles drafts, especially that (a) it autosaves and closes drafts whenever I switch apps and (b) it doesn't appear on the shortcuts list like every other app. Hence, it's annoying to use as a text editor.

I was going to get QuickOffice, but it looks like their latest update broke it, judging by the comments on the market. None of the other apps -- and there are many under the search term "Google Docs"! -- look like they do what I want. Namely, download a doc, let me edit it, and then save it back to the server. (GDocs will download word docs and edit them, and has a save button ... but it doesn't actually, y'know. Save the changes. o.O)

Is anyone using an Android app that does this?

Comments

[duane-kc.livejournal.com]

Well, I found AndrOffice: http://www.androffice.com/

I don't have an Android phone yet, but it might be worth a look.

[rowyn]

I saw this one in the Android market, but unfortunately, the comments on it were uniformly negative. :(

[argonel.livejournal.com]

that is a difficult question. As far as I can tell no such app exists. Using the web browser on the phone should allow you to edit spreadsheets, but does not edit google docs.

One workaround could be to edit a text file in dropbox. If you use the dropbox text editor it automatically uploads and syncs when you save the file. Dropbox is free and you and I will both get extra space free if you use this referral code

http://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTgzMDk3Mzc5

[argonel.livejournal.com]

http://phandroid.com/2010/09/20/mobile-editing-coming-to-google-docs-for-android/

Looks like what you want is coming "soon"

[rowyn]

Yay! I hope that means "this year". Thanks for the news. :)

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Considering Google's definition of soon it could still be this month.

[rowyn]

I did give Dropbox a try, finally. Uploads are not enabled from my phone and it doesn't seem to have any way to edit files in the browser. So it doesn't do the job. :/

[argonel.livejournal.com]

Grab the dropbox app from the market. That should allow you to upload and edit files in your dropbox.