Friday 7 March 2014

CloudOn – Create, Review and Share Presentations from Any Device, Anywhere

 

We have discussed presentations for business using an iPad previously. Today we’ll be looking at Cloud-On; the iPad app that views and edits office files in the cloud.

The ‘cloud’ has become a game changer for businesses. It allows content to be stored on the web which can be edited and viewed by anyone (with permission), anywhere, but since this is predominantly used with Microsoft Office, where does this leave the iPad?

Meet the CloudOn app. Word, Excel and PowerPoint files can be uploaded to the cloud via DropBox or SkyDrive and then downloaded through the app. Files can be edited with some basic tools and previewed directly on the iPad. Content can also be created on the app and uploaded back to your favourite cloud service. Unfortunately when we tested it, the PowerPoint presentation quality wasn’t ideal; it was pixelated, sluggish and we also had issues playing video content. Overall performance is poor; we won’t be using it for our next pitch but it’s one to keep an eye on as further developments come along.

Ease of use: CloudOn is very simple to use and we liked the fact that it supports popular cloud based services like Dropbox and Skydrive.

Cost: Currently CloudOn is free as it is early on in development but they plan to use a tiered pricing structure in the future when more of the issues have been ironed out.

Final thoughts: CloudOn is still in its early days. We love the compatibility and ease of editing content on and off the app, but currently it’s a bit too sluggish to use and the quality of the presentations is poor.