Quickoffice: This app has the iPad versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, and a text file creator. It allows the user to create folders for organizing documents, and it can email and create zip versions of documents. I tried the Word application and found that it is a stripped down to the bones version of a word processor; it will create a document, check spelling, provide basic fonts and styles, and allow printing and creating PDF files--and, beyond a few other minor things, that's about it, with the exceptions that it does allow the user to drop it in Dropbox or other apps, and it has features, such as comment boxes and change tracking that might be useful for sharing and collaborating by students or teachers. To put it mildly: No frills. I also played with PowerPoint and Excel and found them a bit awkward to use, especially Excel. While I'd be more inclined to use a laptop for any of these functions, Quickoffice will work in a pinch or on the run, and since it's free, that's not all bad.
Its main value, then, seems to be in its ability to start the ball rolling in creating a document, sharing it for the sake of making revisions, and then doing the fine tuning with an actual laptop or other computer.
SignNow: This is another app that may be useful in a pinch. I liked how easy it was to set up and to apply a written signature to a document. No scanner needed. That's a genuine plus. Just two issues come to mind: First, as one user noted, signed documents tend to be sensitive in nature, and it might not be wise to let them "float" around on the cloud, where other signers may be involved with the document, especially with the risk of hackers. Second, and not nearly so important, I could never get my "signature" to look like my actual signature--not sure about the legal implications of that, but it was a little concerning.
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