Office2 HD

I noticed today that this product has been updated (Apr. 22). I downloaded the upgrade and tried for about 30 minutes the routine that had produced corrupted files previously. At this point I have been unable to recreate the same problem so I am optimistic that the problem has been fixed. The web site did indicate that the file corruption problem had been corrected in the update.

My post on my difficulties using the Office2 Pro app to edit Google docs has attracted quite a few hits. My experience appears to be in contradiction to the experience of others. I feel bad because my report documents the struggles I have had attempting to get this app to work without success and I am unable to explain why others are not experiencing the same problem. I want people to know I have experimented with this app extensively as late as last evening and I continue to have the same problem. The files are somehow corrupted and the app then freezes. The problem seems “random” and as a programmer these are the kinds of bugs that are most frustrating. It may be something as simple as an upload problem (to Google docs) that fails to complete some kind of process within a certain time period leaving the Google doc in a flawed state. My experience has been that if I continue to edit and save a doc to Google docs this will eventually happen. All I can say is that the app/Google doc combination is too iffy for me to trust and if you are using Google docs for “work” I am urging caution.

I have explored other options of this app and have stored documents in my mobileme account. I have done this without problems, but doubt this is a serious solution for many people.

I have submitted my bug report to the company and this morning received the following reply:

The corruption of Google Docs documents is a result of something that Google changed in the last few days that highlighted an incompatibility with the way we write DOC files and the way Google interprets them. We’ve found a solution however and have already submitted it to Apple, so we expect it to be available in a few days time. For more information, including how to recover documents, please see http://www.bytesquared.com/products/office/ipad/google_corruption.asp