Google Says Android, iPad To Get Docs EditingGoogle Says Android, iPad To Get Docs Editing

Google is holding a small expose in Paris this week called Google Atmosphere. It used the event to showcase a few new enterprise features, including its new two-step verification for Google Apps Premier users. The event is meant to highlight the power of cloud computing to some of Europe's top CIOs.

In addition to the two-step verification system, Google also showed off something else: what it looks like to edit a Google Docs doc from an Android-based smartphone. This is something Google Docs users have been begging for, and now it appears that Google is primed to grant their wish.

Google writes in a blog post, "Today we demonstrated new mobile editing capabilities for Google Docs on the Android platform and the iPad. In the next few weeks, co-workers around the world will soon be able to co-edit files simultaneously from an even wider array of devices." That's all Google said, and that's all it needs to say until the feature goes live.

One of my biggest and longest-standing complaints with Google Docs is the inability to interact with it from mobile devices. Sure, iOS and Android device users can search, access, and view their Google Docs, but they've never been able to edit them. Quite frankly, access is useless without the ability to interact.

Google has focused a ton of energy on developing rich HTML5 browser clients for its Gmail product (both for Android and iOS), which is used by plenty of enterprises. All the enterprises using Google Docs, however, have been left out in the cold, waiting for an HTML5-rich version of Docs to come along.

Perhaps to non-Google Docs users, this may not sound like a big deal, but I know that it will change my life and the way I work. It's something I've been waiting literally years to happen.

Google wouldn't specify exactly when the feature will launch beyond the "next few weeks." Google also left the iPhone out of the list of initially supported devices. Interesting that Google is targeting the iPad before the iPhone for this feature.

Either way, change is coming.