Google Unveils Android for Work; Material Design for Docs, Sheets and Slides

Google, along with its Drive for Work service for corporate users, also dropped some details on the Android for Work programme for the enterprises.

It has been understood that Android for Work will arrive as a part of the upcoming Android L OS, and will offer new APIs to developers, apart from letting users manage their personal data and apps separately from their work data and apps, all inside one single Android device.

"As a user, you can have one experience, and both your personal applications and your corporate applications can live on the same device. All your personal data is isolated from your corporate stuff, and vice versa," stated Sunder Pichai, Senior Vice President at the Google I/O 2014 keynote event. Pichai further explained that the developers would not need to modify their apps for the Android for Work APIs.

Google will release its Android for Work certification programme this fall, promising improved security apart from guaranteed updates. Samsung's native security software, Knox, will also come as a part of Android for Work.

The Web search giant also introduced its new 'Material Design' home screens for its Google Docs, Sheets and Slides web pages. The Material Design language is a part of the 'L Developer Preview' for Android.

Each of the three Google pages show a bright coloured block at the top of the screen followed by a grid of cards showing the documents which have been edited most recently. One can also see a huge + symbol at the bottom right corner of the screen in order to create a new document. The new home screens will be rolling-out to users in the upcoming weeks.

The Google Drive Google+ post additionally mentions that users can now download the 'Office Editing for Docs, Sheets, and Slides' extension for Chrome to be able to edit files even in offline mode.

Google's new native editing feature for Microsoft Office documents was also unveiled at the keynote 2014 event. Drive for Works users can edit Microsoft Office document without converting it into a Google Drive document first. When the editing is done, the changes get saved in the original file. Users can also make suggested edits to a document when working collaboratively.