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}

From their discussions with top grossing iPad developers, and some obsessive watching of the App Store placings of the three apps that make up the iWork suite (Pages, Numbers and Keynote). Business Insider has managed to work out some rough daily sales figures, and extrapolate from there.

The figures make interesting reading for those interested in where they should be aiming for stellar sales, regardless of your interest in Apple’s fortunes.

Basically a top ten app for the iPad, in the iTunes App Store should get about 7,500 downloads on each day of the weekend. And 2,500 downloads each week day. Or thereabouts. Those figures in themselves are interesting. It seems that online sales of apps follow the ingrained habit we have for hitting the Mall, virtual or otherwise, on days off.

In total, for the whole week, that makes around 27,500 downloads.

Even with one app, at $1.99 that would be a healthy sum. But for Apple that’s for three apps, each priced at a premium of $10. Which subsequently makes $825,000 per week in revenue for them.

Business Insider have made a few assumptions about all apps in the top ten selling at the same volume, but at that level of sales what’s a thousand here or there anyway, right?

Spread that out over a year, and not even allowing for a potential explosion of iPad sales globally, that puts Apple on track for over $40 Million in sales for iWork on the iPad alone.

Do you think Apple will make more or less from iWork this year? Do spreadsheets still sound boring to you? Let us know in the comments.

It seems that not a day goes by without somebody telling me that I should be budgeting my finances to make my money go further and to make sure that I know where all my money is going. Well I took that advice many years ago and have used a variety of methods.

From spreadsheets and shareware software to paid of apps and web based options I’ve tried them all, well now Paper Finance is bringing a new alternative option to the table that they claim is both fully featured and easy to use.
If this is the first time you’ve started to manage your finances then the brief tour when you launch the app helps you get started. But in all honesty just as the app suggests everything is kept nice a simple.

If you just want to track a single account then everything is ready to go out of the box so to speak although if required you can add multiple accounts to keep track of.

Of course the simplicity of the application means that you aren’t going to be able import all of your transactions so you’ll have to add them all manually as they occur. This is done via the home screen and you can simple use the new expense or new income button as required. Whichever you chose you can simply add the amount, category, account and date as well as adding optional fields for name and notes.

It’s also possible to add additional categories and accounts direct from the new expense/income page keeping the overall simplicity of the app intact.

Your new additions will automatically be reflected in your balances on the home page so it’s easy to keep track of things. Paper Finance also features recurring transactions. To make a recurring transaction you can tap on the date’s detail disclosure button from the new transaction screen. This takes you to the date details screen where you can set a few recurring options.

Being able to add transactions is one thing but being able to report on them is more important if you are going to keep your finances in order. A swipe to the left will take you to the reports page where you can choose from a range of pre-built reports.

The reports are pretty basic but cover all the main requirements, you can report your expenses or income, or report by category or date. Not only that but you can then view them as a chart which you can export to a PDF file or export the data to CSV.

Both of the exports utilize the email functionality of the iPhone/iPod Touch and just like the reports themselves they are generated quickly even when there is a large amount of data involved.

There are a range of settings so that you can personalize Paper Finance to your own requirements including the ability to add a passcode to the application so that you can keep your data private.

In this day and age where there are applications available where you can automatically import all of your transaction from your online bank accounts Paper Finance feels a little retro.

However, if you want a simple budget app that is a replacement for pen and paper or even a spreadsheet then Paper Finance completes that requirement very nicely.

The Good

• Basic finance management made easy
• Simple controls a navigation
• Export to PDF and CSV

The Not So Good

• No way to import your transactions
• Limited reports

Price: $2.99 (iTunes Store)
Released: Apr 22, 2010
Reviewed Version: 1.0
Size: 1.3 MB
Language: English
Seller: idealSky Software, LLC
© 2010 idealSky Software, LLC
Rated 4+
Requirements: Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iPhone OS 3.1 or later.