While rivals, Microsoft offers a handful of apps for Apple's iOS devices â€" including SkyDrive, OneNote, Wordament and Xbox Music â€" but Microsoft Office isn't one of them.

Oh sure, there's Office Mobile for iOS, but it only works with a qualifying Office 365 subscription. Because it's an addendum to a service, it doesn't count.

Instead, a handful of lesser-known productivity suites are available, which let you view and sometimes edit or create Word, Excel and PowerPoint files, among other file types.

SavySoda's Documents Free [1] is one of them. While not perfect, this mobile office suite does handle many popular files.

And did we mention it's free?

Designed for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, Documents Free can open a wide number of files, whether you've dragged and dropped them into the app via iTunes (when your device is connected to a PC or Mac) or imported from a cloud account (like Google Docs, SkyDrive and Dropbox) or if you choose to open an email attachment in Documents Free (press and hold the file inside the email and then select "Open In…"). There's also a "Sharing Folder" option you can enable, allowing you to wirelessly access contents on a PC when in the same wireless network.

However you choose to get files inside this app, you'll be able to view files created in other programs, including .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx, .pdf, .txt, .csv and more. In my experimentation, this app also played .mp3 (audio), .jpg (photos), .mp4 and .mov (video), as well as opening .txt and .csv files and .htm (offline websites) â€" but it wouldn't open a .zip (compressed) or .msg (Outlook email) file.

Also, be aware the app doesn't offer a lot of rich editing options. I tried to add a sentence to a Word document, but instead I had to copy and paste the text into the in-app text editor and then save it as a rich text file (.rta). Similarly, you can't edit an Excel spreadsheet, but the app does include a feature called iSpreadsheet, to draft a presentation from scratch; iSpreadsheet supports formulas, formatting, resizing and all basic spreadsheet features.

Once you've worked on a document, you can save it, upload it to a cloud service, email, print or open in another app.

Other Documents Free features include a file browser (to view iOS files), support for Google Sync and a simple, clean user-interface in both portrait and landscape mode. You can also search for keywords and create folders to segregate your files.

While unobtrusive, the app does have a small banner ad near the bottom of the screen.

Future updates include support for more file types, says app maker SavySoda, as well as additional functions and features.

Because of its versatility, accessibility and zero price point, Documents Free can help Apple phone and tablet users remain productive while on the run.