Microsoft Office opening for iPhone

As reported in: The Register

iPhone users will soon be able to view, edit, and share Microsoft Word and Excel files on their Jesus Phones.

Announced at this week's CTIA Wireless 2009 tradeshow and conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Quickoffice for iPhone promises a broad range of editing and file-management features.

Since at least last October, Dataviz has promised a similar app for the iPhone as part of its Documents to Go line for other handhelds, but it's not yet ready for release, and DataViz didn't immediately answer our query as to when it would appear.

Long-time Mac developer Mariner Software offers an Excel-on-iPhone app, the $9.99 Mariner Calc (iTunes link), but not a Word-editing app.

Quickoffice for free iPhone's Word-document editing capabilities will include font formatting, text selection, bulleting, and cut, copy, and paste within Word documents. Excel-spreadsheet features will include math and stat functions, cell editing, the ability to recalculate entries, and to insert and resize rows and columns.

Quickoffice for iPhone's developer - unsurprisingly named Quickoffice - also publishes a range of productivity apps for Symbian, Android, Blackberry, and Palm devices.

Two of the apps in the Quickoffice for iPhone suite, the $12.99 Quicksheet and $3.99 Quickoffice Files (iTunes links), are already available, and will be joined by Quickword to complete the suite.

Quickoffice said that the suite will be available at an "introductory price" of $19.99. A company spokesperson told The Reg to expect it next week.

After we receive our copy of Quickoffice for iPhone, we'll put it through its paces and let you know if it's worth your twenty bucks.

iPhone users to get Skype service

Skype has said that iPhone users will be able to use its internet telephony service to make calls, but only using wi-fi and not the mobile network.

The firm's native voice over internet protocol (VoIP) application - Skype for free iPhone - will be available for download from Apple's iTunes store on Tuesday.

The new service will allow users to make free calls to Skype users, but will charge for calls to other numbers.

The UK's first Skype handset was launched by network 3 in 2007.

Rival applications from Fring and TruPhone are already available for the iPhone. On Monday, TruPhone announced a flat rate charge of £25 a month for unlimited Voip calls to mobiles and landlines in 64 countries.

Unlike traditional mobile calls, which are transmitted over a cellular network, Skype turns your voice into data and sends it over the internet.

Some mobile Voip applications allow users to make internet telephone calls over wi-fi and the cellular network.

In the case of Skype, while calling another Skype user will be free, calling an actual phone number via the service will incur a cost.

iphone users will not be able to make Skype calls, either to Skype contacts or to landlines, over the mobile network, something users of Skype on the UK mobile network 3 can do, and have to use a wi-fi hotspot.

Watching the pennies

Many of Skype's other features - such as video conferencing and the ability to receive a second Skype call - have been left out, although the firm did not rule them out in the future.
Apple iPhone
A number of Skype's features have been removed for the iPhone version

"We're considering video carefully but we have a really high bar on the quality," said Skype's chief operating officer Scott Durchslag. "If we do it we will have to do it incredibly well."

Mr Durchslag said he had high hopes for the application.

"The number one request we get from customers is to make Skype available on iPhone," he said.

Skype plan to launch a service for BlackBerry users in May.

As reported by: News.bbc.co.uk