iPhone's Docs To Go 3.0 edits PowerPoint, reads Gmail

DataViz and Quickoffice have long been racing for the glory of creating the most advanced office suite for iPhone. Their products, Documents To Go and Quickoffice Mobile Suite, have leapfrogged one another as they developed. This time, Documents To Go Premium pulls into the lead with version 3.0 of the $14.99 app that is now capable of creating and editing PowerPoint presentations, and opening Gmail attachments. (There's a simpler version of Documents To Go, without these features, for $9.99.)

As part of its update, Documents To Go Premium 3.0, previously known as Documents To Go with Exchange Attachments, now lets you create and edit PowerPoint presentations instead of just read them. Three simple templates for basic, casual, and corporate slides get you going on creating new presentations. You can add bullet points, speaker notes, and manage slides from a sliding navigation ribbon at the bottom of the screen.

Navigation took some getting used to, and could be more intuitive. Presentations were also graphically limited. With few colors and themes and no capability to add graphics or transitions, this initial stab at PowerPoint creation is best suited for textual edits of existing presentations and for creating concept presentations, not for generating full-blown PowerPoints.

As before, Documents To Go Premium accesses your e-mail attachments, but now gives you the option of viewing attachments from Gmail instead of from just Microsoft Exchange. You'll need to set up an account and open either Exchange or Gmail e-mail--but not both--through the app instead of through the iPhone's default in-box. The publisher, DataViz, provides setup instructions here.

While Quickoffice Mobile Suite costs $5 less than Documents To Go Premium, it does not currently create or edit PowerPoint presentations. Users of the $10 version of Documents To Go will soon be able to upgrade to the Premium version through in-app purchasing, after Docs To Go's next update.