Having access to important documents on your iOS devices has proved to be one of the key factors that has lead to the growing adoption of iPhone and iPad in business. Apple understands the importance of having powerful business tools and as a result they’ve been aggressively marketing iWork suite of apps for iOS.

If you often use MS Office for creating documents, presentations or spreadsheets then iWork for iOS might not be the best solution. Even though you can import and export MS Office docs using iWork you will often run into compatibility or formatting issues.

Polaris Office previously $19.99 and now $0.99 (for limited time) offers more than 230 editing functions and features  Microsoft Office document compatibility that will put your worries about editing documents on iOS devices at rest. The developers of Polaris Office are working on a new version 5.0 update that will enhance compatibility features and add more cloud services.

The app allows you to create documents in .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx and .txt format. The user interface is simple and easy to follow. Selecting an element and then tapping the inspector button will expand options in the keyboard area where all options are arranged in vertical tabs.

One of the unique features of the app is the ability to take photos within the app and then apply border, light and other effects. To help you with the creation process Polaris Office even features 15 templates, 18 2D/3D charts and 80 figures.

For those who can’t live without creating spreadsheets for budgets, shopping lists, or sales records, Polaris Office features over 300 functions. The list of features in this app is huge it almost feels like the entire MS Office was squeezed to a 4inch display (when on iPhone). If these features were not enough, you can even directly open zip files and in slideshow mode you can use pointers or even scribble on the slides.

The blogosphere has been reporting on rumours about Microsoft developing MS Office apps for iPhone and iPad, but you can buy Polaris Office for just $0.99 and your wait just got over.

Polaris Office has cloud based storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, cloud built in so you will never lose access to your files whether you created them online or edited on your iOS device.

Overall the app is robust in terms of the features it provides. The app has been downloaded over 400 million times and for a limited period the app is available at 95% off sale. If you’ve always been looking for an app that offers MS Office compatibility and editing features then get this app before the price goes up.

Apple recently released updates for its suite of iWork applications, for both Mac and iOS. The company updated iWork to version 9.3 for compatibility with the iOS 1.7 updates. Pages, Numbers, and Keynote which were updated to version 1.7 added new features such as adding reflections to shapes and the ability to lock and unlock objects. Other features of Pages includes:

• Use Change Tracking to track changes to body text in a document
• Accept and reject individual changes as you review a document
• Import Pages and Microsoft Word documents with change tracking and continue to track changes to body text
• Preserve tracked changes in documents exported in Microsoft Word or Pages format
• Preserve calculations in tables when importing from and exporting to Pages for Mac
• Add reflections to shapes
• Lock and unlock objects

Apple also updated Numbers to version 1.7 to reflect some of the iOS changes on the Mac.

Numbers 1.7:

In this release Numbers for iOS is updated for improved compatibility with Microsoft Excel and Numbers for Mac.

• Hide and unhide rows and columns
• Import and export Numbers for Mac spreadsheets with filters, and turn filters on and off
• Preserve rich text in tables when importing and exporting
• Add reflections to shapes
• Lock and unlock objects

Keynote also received several new features, such as importing and exporting all Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote for Mac slide sizes. Other features include:

• Import and export all Microsoft PowerPoint and Keynote for Mac slide sizes
• Import and export presentation themes, complete with master slides and preset styles
• Play back all Keynote action builds including Move, Rotate, Scale, and Opacity
• Add new slide transitions including Shimmer and Sparkle
• Preserve calculations in tables when importing from and exporting to Keynote for Mac
• Add reflections to shapes
• New print layouts include options to print with presenter notes, with builds, and without backgrounds
• Lock and unlock objects

The Mac version of the iWork applications can be downloaded via the Mac App Store, however, users that bought the boxed version of iWork can update via Software Update.

{Via MacRumors}

The latest update from GoDocs appears to have resolved this issue in a few keys areas, it’s not perfect but it provides a valid way to manage your Google Docs on the go.

The interface is clear and concise, once you’ve added your Google account your docs will be displayed in the left hand panel and you can click any of them to download locally and another to open and view it. The files are color coded to so that you can tell at a glance if the file is local, online or is currently downloading.

All Google Doc file types are supported and are easy to read when displayed on the right side of the screen. You can also collapse the left hand panel to take the document into full screen mode. It even has a built in multimedia player for any audio or video files that you have stored in your Google Docs or Google Drive if you’ve converted over, something that not all mobile apps can claim at present.

The weakest part of the GoDocs experience is the editing, which you could argue is a pretty significant part of the application. The applications uses the standard Google mobile and Desktop interfaces for editing which while functional aren’t the easiest to use but for basic editing the interface does suffice.

Where GoDocs does excel though, at least for me, is in the sharing, push notifications and multiple accounts handling.

I frequently find myself having to share files when I’m not at my desk and sharing them with GoDocs is very easy, as is revoking or editing sharing rights. With any file open you can simply click the ‘information’ icon to access the sharing screen and anyone that you share the doc with will be emailed as you would expect.

The ‘information’ page will also provide you with access to opening the file in another application, downloading the file, moving it, emailing, printing, viewing revisions and more all and the touch of the screen. You can also mass edit files to move, download, mail and delete them.

Push Notifications will alert you to changes to files that you share which can be a nice alternative to a bucket load of emails, however, it didn’t always work 100% of the time so may not be something you can rely on if it’s important to you.

You can’t view docs from multiple accounts at the same time but switching between them is really easy, once you’ve enabled them you can switch accounts at the touch of a button which is both quick and easy.

If you are a heavy Google Docs user and need to access them on the go then GoDocs is a great app for you, editing is basic but it works and sharing and notifications sets this apart from other similar apps in the App Store. It’s not the cheapest app in the App Store but still at $4.99 it’s not going to break the bank.

What we like

• Share your docs on the go
• Mass manage your docs
• Color coded document status
• Push Notifications

What to know

• Editing uses the built in Google Mobile and Desktop options

Apple introduced its iTunes Match services last November, allowing its users to create a music locker by matching their music libraries with songs available on iTunes from major music labels and artists. After bringing the service over to a number of countries, including Brazil last December, the company has now decided to release it in a list of new countries including Austria, Greece, and Italy.

Earlier Tuesday, MacRumors received reports that Apple was planning to launch iTunes Match in new countries, with many users reporting that they were prompted to agree to updated iTunes Store terms and conditions while others were unable to complete registration for the Match service.

Apple’s support document for the service has a running list of all the countries that the service is available in, however, at this point has not been updated and does not contain other countries slated to receive the music locker, such as Bulgaria, Portugal, and Slovenia. Alongside the feature of iTunes Match, users should also be able to use iTunes in the Cloud features as well, allowing them to re-download any previously purchased app, song, or music video from iTunes.

Apple’s introduction of the iTunes Match service in a number of international countries is only one of the many ways that the company is targeting customers abroad. iTunes Match is a different approach to the “cloud”, allowing users to access copies of the music files in their library as opposed to spending hours uploading their entire music and video libraries.

{via MacRumors}

ReaddleDocs combines a network file server, web storage client, web browser, file manager and powerful document viewer within a single iPhone business application. It allows people to transfer documents to their devices over Wi-Fi and 3G in a number of ways, view them on the go, send by email and share with other iPhone users easily.

ReaddleDocs 1.5, that will hit the App Store soon, is capable to view iWork ’09 documents saved with preview and upload files to WebDAV enabled online file storage systems like MobileMe iDisk. ReaddleDocs 1.5 will be available at App Store as free upgrade for existing users.

“With the current App Store economy many people afraid to buy products that costs more than 5 dollars,” explains Alexander Tyagulsky, Readdle CMO. “The sale lets them get familar with the high end products like ReaddleDocs and take advantage of the iPhone as the most powerful document viewer available on the smartphone market.”

Pricing and Availability:
ReaddleDocs is available at special price of $4.99 (USD) exclusively at the App Store.

Founded in 2007, Readdle aims to provide iPhone and iPod Touch users with high quality applications that are missing in a standard application set. Flagship offerings are ReaddleDocs – a complete document and file management solution for the iPhone and iPod Touch; Take A Note – a versatile note taking application with direct access to notes from a PC or Mac computer using Wi-Fi. Copyright 2007-2009 Readdle All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone and iPod are registered trademarks of Apple Computer in the U.S. and/or other countries.