14 DAY TRIAL // Google Docs has finally gone mobile. The team announced that users will be able to edit documents on smartphones and other mobile devices earlier this year and the feature is now going live. The new documents editor, unveiled a few months ago, now supports editing on mobile devices. Until now, users were only able to view the documents or download them.
For frequent users of Google Docs, the feature has been highly anticipated. One of Docs' biggest draw is the possibility to access and edit your documents from any device you're on and the ability to do it on mobile phones or tablets greatly expands this.
While no one is going to write long articles or their school essay on a mobile phone, the ability to make small edits or quickly scribble down some notes which can then be expanded once you get to a laptop should prove really useful.
Note that this is not the full-blown document editor you get on your desktop, which wouldn't really make sense, it's a version catered for mobile devices. Still, it's based on the same technology as the desktop version of the editor.
Editing is adapted for the small screens and the virtual keyboards most devices come with. However, one of Docs' biggest feature, collaborative editing, is supported.
All edits you make on your phone will show up in near real-time for everyone else editing that document. And the edits other make are synced back to the mobile device.
The new feature is being rolled out at this moment and will be available to all devices running Android 2.2 or above and iOS 3.0 or above. The iPad is supported as well. The new mobile editor is only for English-language users but will be rolled out in other languages eventually.