Google releases Slides app for iPhone and iPad

There’s no dominant productivity suite for smartphones or tablets just yet, but Google’s been trying to build one. Today, Google is rounding out that suite of apps with the release of a Slides app for the iPhone and iPad, giving owners of those devices a direct way to edit their slideshow presentations on mobile — something that previously wasn’t available. A Slides app was also released for Android earlier this summer, following up the release of apps for Docs and Sheets on both platforms back in April.

While much of this functionality was previously available within the Google Drive app, breaking the services out into separate apps allows Google put its logo in more places around a person’s phone or tablet. Beyond that, turning these services into individual apps, rather than a single suite of apps, should just make them easier to find and use for the average person. Google is also updating Docs and Sheets today to allow them to open and edit Microsoft Office files. That makes the apps a lot more useful — and it means that Google’s free suite of apps might just be able to replace Office when people go looking for productivity tools on mobile.