DataViz has been promising a Documents to Go app on the iPhone that would be able to edit Microsoft Excel files since March of 2008. On September 21, 2009, DataViz finally submitted to Apple the 2.0 version of Documents to Go, and yesterday (10 days later) the update to the app showed up in the App Store. Editing Excel files isn’t as important for most attorneys as editing Word files, but I’m happy to see that this feature has finally arrived. I’ll let you know how it works once I have had a chance to use it for a while, and if you want to check out the app yourself click here for the $9.99 version and click here for the $14.99 version that works with Exchange e-mail. Other notable iPhone news of the week:
- It was recently discovered that, this past July, Apple purchased a company called Placebase which was a competitor to Google Maps. One of the ways that this was discovered is someone checked out the LinkedIn page of Placebase founder Jaron Waldman and saw that he now says that he works for the “Geo Team” at Apple. Interesting; I didn’t know that Apple had a Geo Team. AppleInsider speculates that Apple could be building a Google Maps competitor. I suppose that is possible, but it seems just as likely to me that Apple sees the increasing importance of location-based services on devices like the iPhone and Apple bought the company so that Waldman and his team would bring their experience to help Apple on these initiatives. For example, I’m sure that you know that the Maps app on the iPhone works with Google Maps, but did you know that it was Apple, not Google, who wrote that app?
- If you have a Mac with a TV tuner and the EyeTV software, you can record over the air TV shows on your Mac to watch later. MacNN reports that with the new EyeTV app, you can also stream that video to your iPhone. It sounds neat, and reminds me of the SlingPlayer Mobile app that streams video from your television to the iPhone.
- iPhone owners in Switzerland who purchased the a traffic monitoring app called mogoRoad were surprised to get phone calls from the developer encouraging them to pay for an upgrade to the app. Apparently the app sends the user’s phone number to the developer so that he can give you a call to ask for more money. Sounds a little creepy to me. Art of the iPhone speculates that this violates Apple’s rules and that the app won’t last long.
- I recently wrote about the AT&T MicroCell device that can use your internet connection to improve your 3G cell phone service. The device was first released in Charlotte, NC, and AppleInsider reports that the service is now available in Raleigh, NC. The service will eventually come to more cities, but apparently the rate of expansion is limited by complicated rules in other cities on complying with local 911 requirements.
- And finally, I’ll admit that I’m a sucker for iPhone 3GS augmented reality apps. I don’t own any yet, but I enjoy reading about them. The latest one to catch my eye is Cyclopedia, and it is a neat idea. You just hold up your iPhone 3GS to look at the world around you and the app provides links to Wikipedia entries that correspond to what you are seeing. A video explains it better than I can, so click here to see the developer’s website and the included video. Click here to get Cyclopedia ($1.99):
