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Google Docs A NO GO on iPad

K

kernyboy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 20, 2007
96
0
Hey Guys,
I thought I'd be able to by pass Pages in favor of Google Docs...looks like apple aint letting this go down! ha. You can read docs no problem, but you CAN'T edit them. Very very sneaky there apple. This of course is on the newly "iPad Ready" version of google docs.
 
kernyboy said:
Hey Guys,
I thought I'd be able to by pass Pages in favor of Google Docs...looks like apple aint letting this go down! ha. You can read docs no problem, but you CAN'T edit them. Very very sneaky there apple. This of course is on the newly "iPad Ready" version of google docs.
Click to expand...

Darn. This would have made the iPad a reasonable "light laptop" for me. I do almost all my document managing in GDocs. If Apple wants me to have multiple computing devices they need to make cloud computing easy and accessible!
 
Is the problem Apple, or Google? With a rumored Google tablet on the horizon, which undoubtedly will allow editing of Google docs, I can imagine that it's Google not allowing editing.
 
It's very likely it's just a case of Google needing to fix the website for use on iPad. It's not like they likely have a test unit from Apple, given their recent history.

I doubt Apple would put something in Safari to intentionally disable gdocs website (would probably get them sued, if they did).
 
kernyboy said:
Hey Guys,
I thought I'd be able to by pass Pages in favor of Google Docs...looks like apple aint letting this go down! ha. You can read docs no problem, but you CAN'T edit them. Very very sneaky there apple. This of course is on the newly "iPad Ready" version of google docs.
Click to expand...

Would the Office Pro app help?
 
kernyboy said:
Hey Guys,
I thought I'd be able to by pass Pages in favor of Google Docs...looks like apple aint letting this go down! ha. You can read docs no problem, but you CAN'T edit them. Very very sneaky there apple. This of course is on the newly "iPad Ready" version of google docs.
Click to expand...

Similarly zoho isn't iPad compatible. I thought I'd use that instead of pages for better microsoft word support and it is also free (and better than google docs).

I haven't seen anything that says either will be ipad compatible. Ms office won't be I have a feeling. Microsoft has said as much. Pages doesn't export nicely to ms word doc files. So any other word processor apps coming that anyone knows of?
 
Wirelessly posted (iPod Touch 2G 8GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Just use the NOT mobile version of google docs?
 
iVoid said:
It's very likely it's just a case of Google needing to fix the website for use on iPad. It's not like they likely have a test unit from Apple, given their recent history.

I doubt Apple would put something in Safari to intentionally disable gdocs website (would probably get them sued, if they did).
Click to expand...

I really don't see this as a specific anti-google move by Apple. However I'm not sure if Mobile Safari is ready for full-blown desktop like webapps. Is having two scrolling areas on the page possible, or keeping some controls fixed while the rest of the page moves? I guess we'll find out over the coming months whether Apple is interested in supporting these sort of things.
 
This is most simply a Google "issue."
Basically, the Google website keeps defaulting to mobile version of Google Docs when viewed on the iPad. You can scroll to the bottom of the main page and select the Desktop version of the website, but when you try to make a new document, a new page opens - which defaults to the mobile version... And thus can't edit anything.

Google will have to update their site a bit. Just like they did with the iPad-specific Gmail page (which is really nice, by the way), I'm sure they're looking at what works best.

By the way, Google Calendar on the iPad pulls up the desktop version, not the mobile version. Google should do the same with the Google Docs pages.
 
I'm sure Google will find a way around this, just as they have with their Google Talk online-app.
 
iVoid said:
It's very likely it's just a case of Google needing to fix the website for use on iPad. It's not like they likely have a test unit from Apple, given their recent history.

I doubt Apple would put something in Safari to intentionally disable gdocs website (would probably get them sued, if they did).
Click to expand...

Just email google and let them know.

It will probably be fixed quickly.

It in Google's interest to have their services as accessible as possible.

Goog is building their own hardware and OS software so that they are not beholden to other companies for computer access (and thereby access to Google's services), not necessarily because they are "competing".

Even though the media LOVES to hype bad blood between Apple and Google, it is not anything significant. It just is not in the interest of Apple or Google to be at war with one another.
 
Considering the API available, it would be very simple to code an app that can edit google docs. So this must be a temporary situation.
 
ipoddin said:
Just scroll to the bottom of the page and choose "desktop" view. Problem solved and you can edit. Google doesn't allow editing in the mobile view.
Click to expand...

Right, I'm not the one with the issue, and no the issue is not resolved when you do this. It allows you to see the "desktop view" of your document list, but when you click on a document, it throws it back into mobile mode.
 
shakenmartini said:
It in Google's interest to have their services as accessible as possible.
Click to expand...
this is true
Goog is building their own hardware and OS software so that they are not beholden to other companies for computer access (and thereby access to Google's services), not necessarily because they are "competing".
.
Click to expand...

Not so sure this is true. They seem to be pretty set on drifting into the product/os space recently, and pushing to gain market share.
 
jawa12083 said:
Wirelessly posted (iPod Touch 2G 8GB: Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)

Just use the NOT mobile version of google docs?
Click to expand...

I tried this however even if you pick the Desktop version when you open the individual docs they open in mobile (read only) format.
 
I use Office2 HD, available from the AppStore. This lets you access Google Docs as well as any WebDAV folder, edit your spreadsheet or other document and when you save it, it uploads directly back to Google Docs.
 
The problem is that Mobile Safari doesn't support contentEditable elements and Google Docs relies on these for rich text editing.

See the answer by ffub on the Google Docs help forum here.

Possible solutions?
- contentEditable is rolled into Mobile Safari in OS 4. Not sure if that's happening.
- A third party app provides support. Some suggestions already posted by others but I'd personally prefer native editing support.
- Google allows GDocs to degrade to text only (i.e. not rich) editing of text on an iPad.

Hope one of these happens soon as I rely on Google Docs...:(
 
If you use a browser where you can set the user agent (like icab or atomic browser), would that help?

I'll try that when i'm at home
 
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