In
what seems like a trend, major technology companies are scurrying to
release standalone offline document editing apps. Close on the heels of
Microsoft releasing Office for iPad, Google announced on Wednesday that
the company is launching new offline document editing apps - Docs,
Sheets and Slides - for both the Android and iOS platforms.
Interested
users can pick up Docs (Android, iOS) and Sheets (Android, iOS) immediately from Google
Play and the App Store. Slides is expected to be made available soon.
These
apps will work independently of the Google Drive app which is already
available on both Android and iOS. In a blog,
Google states that on opening the new apps users will see the most
recently edited relevant Google Drive files for offline editing, which
means they spend less time on searching and scrolling the main app.
While
Google Drive also allows
users to create and edit documents, one cannot do it offline. These new
apps allow offline editing on-the-go without an Internet connection.
Google mentions in the blog that users who are already using Drive will
be prompted to download the new apps when they go to edit or create a
document or spreadsheet in the app. Users will still be able to use the
Drive app to view and organise all the documents.
Notably,
Microsoft
released an update on Tuesday for the Office apps on iPad which
introduced the ability to print documents via AirPlay, SmartGuides in
PowerPoint, and AutoFit in Excel.
Google recently
also reduced subscription prices for Drive, making it way below what
OneDrive and Dropbox charge.