Quickoffice brings simple Excel editing to iPhone

Spreadsheet editing is made finger friendly with Quickoffice's Excel editing tool.

(Credit: Quickoffice)

Despite the addition of Microsoft Exchange and the App Store with version 2.0 of the iPhone's firmware, the device is still a long way from competing with Windows Mobile handsets when it comes to the native editing of several popular file formats. Mobile-productivity software company Quickoffice is trying to change that with a new iPhone application that lets users edit their Microsoft Office Excel spreadsheets.

Called MobileFiles Pro, this $9.99 application can pull in Excel workbooks from any of your computers (over Wi-Fi) or on the Web through MobileMe's iDisk sharing. It supports editing over multiple pages in a workbook, row and column resizing and insertion, and manages to do it all with a good deal of simplicity.

To edit a cell, you simply tap it with your thumb and type in a new value. There are also options to format what's inside it, run formulas, and add new pages.

The option to edit files joins the functionality to view other file types, including movies, music, images, Microsoft Word documents, PDFs, and iWork documents (akin to Quickoffice's QuickAccess sister product). QuickOffice says it will continue to push out editing for other file formats, such as Microsoft Word, in future releases.

MobileFiles Pro joins a handful of other iPhone applications that let you view and edit Excel spreadsheets, including Spreadsheet, Spreadsheet LX, iSpreadsheet, and the upcoming Mariner Calc app which is due in a few weeks.