Google Docs for Android app finally gets mobile collaboration

This is one of those cases where the headline really does say it all: The native Google Docs app for Android phones and tablets has been updated to enable real-time document collaboration and editing without having to launch a browser, plus a few other enhancements to the overall mobile experience. The update is available now on the Android Market.

I suspect that the people who would be really interested left after reading that first paragraph, but if you're still here, Google also says in the blog entry that it's added rich text formatting for creating bullet lists, bolding important sentences or adding color. It also now supports things like pinch-to-zoom into a single paragraph (or back out again into the whole document view).

Previously, the Google Docs app largely acted as a smarter frontend to the cloud document editing suite. Users were able to view documents, store their list of documents (though not the documents themselves) on the device, share files with people from your address book, and even turn a photo of text into an editable document. But any editing was actually done in the browser, and the collaborative aspect was limited to say the least.

Now, though, you can join a document with a touch and see changes in real-time, similar to the desktop browser-based version. Google even has a demonstration video up on YouTube, for further illumination.

Who's excited about editing their Google Docs on an Android phone? Sound off in the comments.