I got sick of lots of vague reviews either praising or damning this app, so I finally bought it (on sale for $12) to see for myself. I created .docx and .xlsx files on the iPad and on a PC, and then imported/exported them back and forth to see what happened. For everyone like me who wants specifics, here you go.
WHAT IT DOES:
On the iPad, QOC has 7 fonts and various colors, bold, italic, and underline. It supports paragraph alignment & indent controls. You can create bulleted lists (all bullet icons the same regardless of hierarchy).
WHAT IT DOESN’T DO:
Interestingly, the Viewer function in the Mail app displays Word documents much more accurately than QOC—you just can’t edit them. You can’t create any advanced features on the iPad—header/footer, autotext (page #, auto-date, etc.). You can’t insert graphics. Numbered lists may be continued/edited if they already existed in the imported document. You can edit the cell contents of existing tables, but you can't create a new table, row, column, or edit borders.
QOC cannot display or edit the following, but it does not “strip” them from the file: shaded table cells, strikethrough, super- or subscript fonts; page breaks and portrait/landscape orientation. Unsupported fonts will be displayed in--but not permanently converted into--one of the 7 supported fonts; as a result, line breaks and alignment may appear different on the iPad display than the original font in MS Word. Extra space between paragraphs will likely appear on the iPad and text will not be wrapped around a graphic correctly; both return to normal in MS Word if you leave them alone.
The following items will be stripped from the file: watermarks, page borders, hyperlinks, footnotes. Headers/footers were sometimes stripped, and sometimes passed thru.
SPREADSHEET
Basic font, number/date, and cell shading/border formatting options. Formatting retention seems good. Basic math, accounting, date/time, and logical formulas seem to transfer well, but more esoteric functions (e.g. COUNTIF, SUMIF) don’t; in that case, the value is displayed but the formula isn’t. These formulas aren’t stripped—as long you don’t edit those cells on the pad, the formulas will still be there when exported back to Excel. Charts will not appear in QOC, but are not stripped. Obviously, macros are out.
BOTTOM LINE: The word processor will meet the needs of 90% of users—letters, memos, and other (relatively) simple documents. Ditto for the spreadsheet. Frustration will increase with the complexity of the file, so if you want heavy-duty page layout tools, stick with “real” computer.
The user interface was good. File management and transferring files via iTunes or DropBox was easy.
So is it better than Pages/Numbers, or Document to Go, or whatever? I don't know--I don't have any of those apps. If you can live within the limitations above, then this is a worthwhile app. However, now that they're charging $19 for it, there's no $$ advantage over Pages & Numbers.
