Google Announces New Mobile Features for Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Including Upcoming Dark Mode

[MacRumors]

Google has announced a handful of mobile enhancements for its Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps that are active now or will be rolling out on iOS soon.

First up, Google has completed the rollout of dynamic email in the Gmail iOS app. Google says dynamic email brings the richness and interactivity of AMP to mobile devices, allowing users to take action directly within a message. So instead of receiving individual email notifications when a user is mentioned in a comment in Docs, Sheets, or Slides, they'll now see an up-to-date comment thread in Gmail, and be able to reply or resolve the comment, directly within the message.

Earlier this year, Google launched Smart Compose in Docs on the web to help users write documents faster and reduce the chance of spelling and grammatical errors. Now its bringing the power of Smart Compose to mobile, with the aim of making it even faster and easier to write documents on the go. Smart Compose will roll out to G Suite customers on iOS over the next few weeks.

Google says it's improving the user interface for comments and action items in Docs, Sheets, and Slides on mobile. The larger, clearer commenting UI should make it easier to scroll through and respond to comments, while a quick access button to reply and @mention others aims to enable more focused discussions. These updates will be rolling out to iOS in the coming months.

Office editing was introduced on the web last year, and is designed to make it easy to edit, comment, and collaborate on Microsoft Office files using Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Google is rolling out Office editing to its Docs, Sheets, and Slides mobile apps on Android in the coming weeks, with iOS to follow later this year.

Elsewhere, a new viewing experience is coming to Slides, with a vertically scrollable stream of slides that users can pinch-to-zoom. Google says this new view helps review slides faster, and users can easily switch to editing or presenting content. The feature will roll out on iOS in the coming months.

Lastly, Docs, Sheets, and Slides will be getting a Dark mode on iOS in the coming months, to make it easier for users to work in low-light environments and keep their iPhone battery alive for longer.

Google Docs [Direct Link], Sheets [Direct Link], and Slides [Direct Link] are free downloads for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store.

Article Link: Google Announces New Mobile Features for Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Including Upcoming Dark Mode

 

[PickUrPoison]

I’d sure like not to have to use Microsoft Office in the corporate world, but I think it’s just too entrenched.

 

[atoqir]

When does Google Drive get a dark mode? It has one on Android for ages.

I don't like using Google apps on iOS. They look terrible and sometimes it seems they are trying to make them as alien as possible on iOS

Microsoft also has their Fluent design principles on Windows and web but on iOS and MacOS they make their apps look and feel like they belong on the host OS. As it should be.

 

[Dave 346]

Does Google Docs have an equation editor on iPad yet? Crazy that Apple was able to get feature parity on their apps like 8 years ago.

 

[malkovich87]

What does Google do with the data it collects from google docs users?

 

[Rychiar]

Why is dark mode so hard to implement. Facebook has made a complete joke of it. Just flip the damn switch already

 

[Benjamid]

Hate using Google Docs, especially on iOS, but I have to everyday at work, since I am working in a low margins business, and it’s free

 

[1144557]

Never used Docs, Sheets, etc. more than to tinker to see what it is about. Dont need Google collecting data from documents too; especially customer/client docs. It would actually be a breach of professional ethics to do so.

Office desktop and app only with secure cloud storage.

I cannot begin to fathom why someone would trust Google with their important documents scanning them to target ads etc; unless it was maybe school work or something mundane. I wouldnt even store important personal info with them frankly (important personal docs, medical info, etc) But in a professional setting? No way!

 

[Sharkoneau]

Dark Mode will make a nice little Christmas gift come December.

 

[GadgetBen]

I’d sure like not to have to use Microsoft Office in the corporate world, but I think it’s just too entrenched.

If you do eventually get the chance to work for yourself the Google suite is absolutely brilliant for startup company setup.

Looking forward to these changes.

 

[cheesyappleuser]

About Dark Mode, it looks like Google is finally implementing this across the board (hopefully the same with web apps?)
If you take a look at the YouTube app the splashscreen is already black if you're using Dark Mode.

 

[needsomecoffee]

Very pleased with the scripting capability available from Sheets as a means to provide simple server-side DB functionality for a "learning arithmetic" PWA aimed at parents. Really nice work from Google's engineering there.

 

[Puppuccino]

I wonder if the Google search homepage will ever get dark mode? It’s like the last thing on the internet to not have adopted it yet.

 

[kuwxman]

What does Google do with the data it collects from google docs users?

Never used Docs, Sheets, etc. more than to tinker to see what it is about. Dont need Google collecting data from documents too; especially customer/client docs. It would actually be a breach of professional ethics to do so.

Office desktop and app only with secure cloud storage.

I cannot begin to fathom why someone would trust Google with their important documents scanning them to target ads etc; unless it was maybe school work or something mundane. I wouldnt even store important personal info with them frankly (important personal docs, medical info, etc) But in a professional setting? No way!

Jesus, you people are annoying. We get it. You don't like Google. You don't trust Google. Every post that references anything Google. Nobody cares....

Anyways, back to the actual topic.

Excited for these updates. Working for a small business, we take full advantage of Google's offerings...most notably Sheets. Sharing and live updating documents with colleagues works so much better with Google versus the more traditional Office. Not the mention the cost savings. "bUt YoUr PrIvAcY"

 

[ktecac]

About Dark Mode, it looks like Google is finally implementing this across the board (hopefully the same with web apps?)
If you take a look at the YouTube app the splashscreen is already black if you're using Dark Mode.

Yeah it can be enabled in the experimental features settings in Chrome - still needs some work / a lot of sites will have to adapt on desktop etc - but its excellent for using Google Docs at least. Only have 1 year left before graduating so hopefully won't have to use Google docs as much after that but will be nice for last round of assignments.

 

[TTTedP]

"bUt YoUr PrIvAcY"

For every person that complains about using Google products, I wish they would add if they use Twitter or anything Facebook owned. If not, OK, they may have a leg to stand on.

Honest question though on the value proposition of Google Apps vs O365. MS has more subscription layers but, basic GApps vs basic O365, it seems about the same per user pricing per month.

Is it safe to say a lot more people feel less queasy about using Microsoft over Google?

 

[Santiago]

Why is dark mode so hard to implement. Facebook has made a complete joke of it. Just flip the damn switch already

With Google it's because they have so much custom Material UX library components (that make the UX look un-iOS-like) that it's taken them forever to update them to work with Dark Mode.

 

[egrimo]

Honestly, I was defending Google for so long until Microsoft goes fluent design and Google tools left "too easy". Until Apple does something on business side, my money for our startup will go to the Microsoft side. They have very good iOS apps too

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Never used Docs, Sheets, etc. more than to tinker to see what it is about. Dont need Google collecting data from documents too; especially customer/client docs. It would actually be a breach of professional ethics to do so.

Office desktop and app only with secure cloud storage.

I cannot begin to fathom why someone would trust Google with their important documents scanning them to target ads etc; unless it was maybe school work or something mundane. I wouldnt even store important personal info with them frankly (important personal docs, medical info, etc) But in a professional setting? No way!

I use google docs/sheets because it is free, effective for my needs, and cross platform. It's also very convenient to have the automatic cloud backup, and multi-device login. As for targeted ads, that doesn't bother me one bit, we live in a world of advertising, and I'd much prefer to get ads for things I'm interested in than things I'm not. And anyway, I use ad blockers extensively, so rarely see any ads as it is. If you think targeting is intrusive, then I dunno, I think that's overthinking things, it's not like some human is sitting there actually reading through every piece of data you have/send/store, it's all AI driven, and it's just skimming for keywords. No one is personally reading through all your emails/fb-posts etc and using any info from them, that would cost too much, it's all AI skimming, and all purely to increase advertising efficiency, ie revenue.

 

[MyopicPaideia]

Dark mode and comments, but no actual feature parity efforts at all with the web-based applications...

What actually is wrong with developers? Sheets, Docs, and Slides are a joke as native apps on both iOs and iPadOS. They only became really viable as options with iPadOS 13 and desktop mode Safari as web apps. Even then there is a stupid cursor problem in Docs on Safari with iPad’s - Give the native apps feature parity with the web or rename them DDMV GDocs (Dumbed Down Mobile Version).

 

[PickUrPoison]

If you do eventually get the chance to work for yourself the Google suite is absolutely brilliant for startup company setup.

Looking forward to these changes.

Whether I deal with startups or large corporations, it’s Microsoft Office. I’m typically interfacing with corporate folks in legal, HR and finance so maybe that factors in.

No doubt a lot of companies use Google’s suite but when you’re collaborating with outside contractors, agencies and others it’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint. In my experience anyway.

 

[egrimo]

Whether I deal with startups or large corporations, it’s Microsoft Office. I’m typically interfacing with corporate folks in legal, HR and finance so maybe that factors in.

No doubt a lot of companies use Google’s suite but when you’re collaborating with outside contractors, agencies and others it’s Word, Excel and PowerPoint. In my experience anyway.

As a 1 year old startup, we switched from G-Suite to Office 365 just because of this. Every company, literally everyone uses Office as their document sharing and presentation tools. Google has their tools for startups but the tools are so basic. Eventually, whether you use Apple Suite or Google, you will need to convert/export to Office formats to share, so why bothering with this than switching to Office ecosystem and directly share what you have as an office document?

They give better storage space than the price range startups tend to have anyway( Google's basic only gives 30GB and is combined with Email and Photos, whereas in Microsoft, emails have their special 50GB quota other than 1TB storage for photos and files anyway)

Microsoft also has some tools such as Planner and To-Do that makes Trello like project tools unnecessary to use since all workers on the 365 has access to have tasks and can assign other employee's easily without leaving 365 ecosystem. They also have Teams that replaces your Slack app for company communications and online meetings.

 

[ericwn]

I’d sure like not to have to use Microsoft Office in the corporate world, but I think it’s just too entrenched.

Happily use anything from MS over anything from the ad company, especially for business.

 

[ericwn]

Jesus, you people are annoying. We get it. You don't like Google. You don't trust Google. Every post that references anything Google. Nobody cares....

Anyways, back to the actual topic.

Excited for these updates. Working for a small business, we take full advantage of Google's offerings...most notably Sheets. Sharing and live updating documents with colleagues works so much better with Google versus the more traditional Office. Not the mention the cost savings. "bUt YoUr PrIvAcY"

Yeah let’s only have one sided posts about the ad company. That will be helpful.

“bUt My mOnEt” LOL.

 

[The Game 161]

Waiting fo google news to get dark mode in the articles