unveiled updates to its Drive apps for iOS Android on Monday—a revamp that transforms the service’s mobile offerings into a richer, full-blown competitor to other online storage services.
In its iOS version (at least), the first edition of Drive unveiled this summer was little more than a glorified document reader: Users could see read files they’d created on their desktop computer, but they couldn’t create or edit documents on their ione id. Monday’s update, then, is a giant leap forward for Drive on iOS—users can create files documents, edit format them, collaborate with other users, upload photos videos from their device for storage in ’s cloud.
Though the video demonstration in the announcement showed spreadsheet editing, that feature is not yet available. Users can view presentations spreadsheets on the app, but not yet create or edit them there. “oking ahead, we have plenty more planned for the Drive mobile apps—including native editing real-time collaboration for spreadsheets,” according to the blog.
The changes to the Android version of Drive are more subtle—document creation was available in earlier versions—but still an advance: Users can now create folders perform housekeeping tasks like moving documents from one folder to the next, as well as filter folders by type. Android users can now also change document fonts while editing, can pinch-to-zoom documents for a closer look at the text.
Drive’s mobile apps are both free, as is the first 5 GB of cloud storage: The company charges $25 a year for the first 25 GB of storage after that. ione id users must run iOS 5.0 or later to use the app; Nexus 7 related tablets phones must run Android 2.1 up.