JeffKirvin.net

Source: Documents To Go for Windows Mobile 5 Smartphone: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF on your Motorola Q, Samsung BlackJack & T-Mobile Dash

Documents To Go is the first and only mobile office editor for Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone edition on the market today. Now you can view, edit and create Microsoft® Word, Excel and PowerPoint® files, view Adobe® PDF files as well as unzip files on your smartphone no matter where your personal or professional life takes you.

The emphasis above is mine. Because the roles have reversed in a peculiar way.

When I first reviewed reviewed Documents To Go 3.0 back in October of 2000, I noted:

You can’t create new bulleted lists, but you can modify the ones that already exist.

This is a recurring theme in Documents To Go. The entire interface assumes most of what you need in the document was already there when you synced it over from Word on the desktop. There is no “new” button, for example. You’re not expected to create new documents from scratch on the Palm. You can work around this by using templates, blank, pre-created documents that you create on the desktop, sync, open in Documents To Go and then immediately Save As…, but I really don’t think DataViz expects people to do this.

Now, nearly seven years later, the tables have turned. Now Documents To Go 9.0 allows full document creation on Windows Mobile Standard/Smartphone devices, while Microsoft’s own Office Mobile requires the same lame template work around that Documents To Go used on the Palm back before the internet bubble burst.

You heard me right. Despite all the trumpeting of how great it is that Office Mobile now exists across all Windows Mobile devices, Windows Mobile Standard devices still can’t create new documents. That feature is missing from the Standard devices, you have to move up to a Professional (what we today call Pocket PC Phone Edition) to create a new Word document or spreadsheet.

Why is it so difficult for Microsoft to get that in order for a device to enable a mobile workflow, creation of data, not just reference to it, is often unavoidable? Maybe I’m especially sensitive to this because as a writer, I frequently have to create new documents as new story or article ideas hit me. But I’ve also created ad hoc spreadsheets on the fly, “back of the envelope” calculations that were much easier to do in Excel than Calculator. If I’ve got Excel on my device, why not use it?

But Windows Mobile 6 Standard device owners don’t have that option. They’re expected to use their device as a mere satellite of their desktop PC, not as a sophisticated mobile computer in its own right. They’re expected to be spectators in their own lives, not taking the reins and creating their own destiny.

Okay, that was a bit much. But not being able to create new documents is still pretty lame.