Google drops Quickoffice now that its own apps can handle your work
Google bought Quickoffice to boost the productivity of its Apps suite, and it clearly accomplished that mission when it released a slew of mobile editing tools that merge Quickoffice's file tech with Google Drive. Accordingly, the search firm is pulling the plug on the earlier software; it's going to remove Quickoffice from both Apple's App Store and Google Play "in the coming weeks." You can still download it after that if you're an existing fan, but newcomers will have no choice but to use either Google's apps or their rough equivalents.
The move isn't surprising, since there's no need for Google to keep a redundant app hanging around. However, it marks the end to a long, long chapter in cellphone history. Quickoffice was a mainstay of mobile workers before smartphones took off, and it has run on most major (and not-so-major) platforms over the span of roughly 12 years -- it's sad to see the name go, even if the technology will live on.
