The search giant decided to discontinue the Quickoffice app for Android, since most of its functionality was integrated in both the online and the mobile versions of Google Docs.
As long as none of the functionality is lost, it definitely sounds like great news that Quickoffice is integrated in Google Drive. Quickoffice was acquired by Google in June 2012, and ever since, it represented the search giant’s ultimate weapon in the war against Microsoft and its Office suite. Best of all, Quickoffice was used both by home and business users, and was even included in Google Apps for Business, a cloud-based suite that costs $50 per user per year. More than a year after the acquisition, in September 2013, Google decided to offer the app for free (something that the company has done with other apps, as well), and in November, the company turned Quickoffice into a staple for KitKat.
The company mentioned in an Android Apps blog post last week that “With the integration of Quickoffice into the Google Docs, Sheets and Slides apps, the Quickoffice app will be unpublished from Google Play and the App Store in the coming weeks. Existing users with the app can continue to use it, but no features will be added and new users will not be able to install the app.”
At press time, the Quickoffice app was still up both on Google’s Play Store and on Apple’s AppStore, but I’d take the developer’s word for granted, when it says that it’ll be unpublished soon. Google Docs for Android was updated on June 25 to reflect the new functionality, but the iOS version has yet to receive the new capabilities. Also, Chrome OS users had access to the new functions right away, while Windows and OS X users of Google’s browser will have to download and install an 11.5MB Chrome extension.
Probably the best feature brought by the update is the ability to edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint files without having to convert them in Google’s own formats first. That’s a major improvement that will surely save users some time.
For Google it was definitely worth buying Quickoffice and integrating that team into its Google Apps group, especially since now the functionality has been added to more than just the Android apps.
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