Docs To Go and RoadSync Exchange Client Shown on Android

I just got finished getting a full demo of Docs To Go and RoadSync for Google Android on the G1. Short version: very very impressive. Docs To Go, with support for editing Word Documents and Spreadsheets, is currently targeted for sometime in March -- unless the Google's framework for Paid apps gets in the way. Pricing isn't quite set yet.

We also got a look at RoadSync, which is a crazy good app that allows you to get Exchange email and contacts pushed out to Android. It does it via 2 separate applications -- one that sits in the background and is an ActiveSync client to allow your email to be pushed out, the other is a full-featured email client for your Exchange emails. If you have both Docs To Go and RoadSync installed, RoadSync will also give you full support for attached documents. The timeline for RoadSync's release is a little less unclear, but if the demo that I saw today is any indication, DataViz doesn't have all that much more work to do on it. As with Docs To Go, pricing isn't yet determined.

That's the global overview. Impressions and a few more photos after the break.

Both Word To Go and Sheet To Go are full-featured editing applications. Word To Go supports inline images, full formatting of text, outlines, and the like. Both work in landscape and portrait modes. The apps really sing on the G1 and look great. DataViz said that Android is a joy to develop for -- in part because the way apps work on Android is some Java on top of Linux and DataViz was able to use much of what they've learned developing their Java-based BlackBerry version.

Sheet To Go is especially impressive. You can set your zoom level, navigate by touch or the trackball (naturally), and formulas work with no problem and are completely live. In other words, if you have an autosum set up and change a value, the autosum changes your total automatically, just like a spreadsheet app should.  As you can see from the image at the top of the post, it's all very readable and usable and feels very much like a desktop app.

RoadSync is also impressive.  As I said, it's a full ActiveSync client -- it nicely sits in your notification's bar and window shade so you know it's active.  You can turn it on and off and set up your server settings -- that's about all there is to it.  The real action comes from their email client -- rather than try to hack into the default email or Gmail clients (which would have caused a lot of pain, likely), DataViz simply created their own separate email client that looks and feels pretty similar to Android's non-Gmail email client.  This was a good decision on their part because it allows them to plug in full support for their Docs To Go suite, meaning you can download attachments for editing in Docs To Go.

Full document editing on Android has been a long time coming. Given DataViz's history of developing excellent office apps on pretty much every other mobile platform out there (including the iPhone, by the way) hopefully means we'll see the same rich feature set coming to Android at launch.

Dieter Bohn