AppleInsider StaffIn a post to the company's official blog, Google Drive was presented as a service that allows users to "create, share, collaborate, and keep all of your stuff." It allows users to upload and access all file types, including videos, photos, Google Docs, PDFs and more.
The Google Drive application can also be installed on a Mac or Windows PC to sync files locally. A Drive application is now available for Google Android devices, while the company said it is "working hard" on a version of Drive for iOS devices.
For those who need more storage, Google offers 20 gigabytes for $5 per year, 80 gigabytes for $20, 200 gigabytes for $50, 400 gigabytes for $100, and one terabyte for $256.
Upgrading to a paid account will also give Gmail users a boost on their e-mail storage through Google to 25 gigabytes. Storage used in Gmail does not come out of space allotted for Google Drive.
In comparison, Apple's iCloud service, which launched last October, comes with 5 gigabytes for free, while users can buy an additional 10 gigabytes for $20 per year, 20 gigabytes for $40, or 50 gigabytes for $100.
Google said that Drive allows users to work with others in real time on documents, spreadsheets and presentations. Using the new service, users can also share content easily, and add and reply to comments on anything, including PDFs, images, or video files.
Of course, the company's search technology is also a part of the package, granting the ability to search by keyword and filter by type, owner and more. Google Drive can also recognize text in scanned documents using Optical Character Recognition technology.
Drive also ties in with other Google products, allowing users to attach photos from Drive to posts in the Google+ social networking service. Soon, users will also be able to attach files from Drive directly to e-mails in Gmail.
Google also boasted that drive is an "open platform," which will allow third-party developers to enable new features. Some of the additions mentioned by the company include the ability to send faxes, edit videos, and create website mockups.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
William Gallagher
33 Comments
Here, place all your stuff here for us to rifle through... uh, I mean, to index and make accessible to you. Heck we will even do OCR on your images so we can scrape every last bit of data from your files. All for you of course...
Google, your service is interesting, I just wish I trusted you more...
For the paid options that's dramatically less expensive than Drop Box.
Since Apple is incurably bad at anything server side, this might be worth a look. And before anyone accuses me of trolling, my iCloud email has been playing up for weeks, and a movie I rented off iTunes yesterday took 7 hours to download.
iCloud email has indeed has some early outages—but that feature is more competing with GMail, not Google Drive.
I prefer Apple to hold my data because keeping my data private is central to how they make money (i.e., giving thei customer a good product and a good experience).
Whereas for Google, privacy is a necessary “evil” that works against how they make nearly all of their money (selling info about you to advertisers, directly or otherwise).
Google’s profits are harmed by privacy. Apple’s profits are helped by it. I don’t question Google’s technical prowess, but I question whether they can be trusted today, next year, and in 5 years, to care about my privacy as much as I do.
Plus I hate ads. I’m happy to let my phone company pay a subsidy to Apple for my iCloud privileges :)
Google, your service is interesting, I just wish I trusted you more...
I agree. When Gmail first came out, a friend of mine was very into it. I told him that I wasn't comfortable with any third party using my email as a database.
I don't trust any of these companies offereing cloud services. With hard drives being as cheap as they are, I see little or no reason for third-party storage, unless the intent is to keep redundant copies off-site in an encrypted format, in case your house burns down or something. Otherwise, I llike to keep my data safe at home.