Office² Review

In a very brief space of time, Office² has become the best productivity app I own. This means that on some days I can deal with all my business needs by working from my iPhone, not needing to go near a PC. High praise indeed.

Office² offers the ability to view, create and edit Word documents (both .doc and .docx) and Excel (XLS) documents from your iOS device. Even more useful, it integrates with Google Docs, DropBox and MobileMe iDisk amongst others. As someone who spends much of their life tethered to a Google Docs document, I find this hugely useful.

You can do almost anything you could want with a document. You can add font effects such as bold or italics, insert tables or pictures and align text however you want. There's even a spellcheck function. All these functions are extraordinarily simple to get to as well, with nothing feeling awkward. The only restriction, really, is the speed at which you can type on the iOS device's virtual keyboard. In addition, Office² does offer external keyboard support - making it all the simpler.

Plus you can use Office² as a form of USB stick too considering you can use it to view many other file formats such as PDF. You can also mount Office² as a drive on your PC so you can transfer files easily via iTunes.

It's ridiculously useful, simply put. At the most basic level, it means that I can spend a while checking my e-mail via the mail app, then load up the various attachments without having to wait until I get to a PC to check them out. But then it also means I can spend time while commuting editing files, for example, thus saving me time later in the day. Or I can relax and catch up on some documents I fancy reading.

It might feel a little pricey at $5.99, but the amount of time it could potentially save you is worth its weight in gold. It's just so darn useful that you'll be using it on a daily basis.