Earlier this week, Google improved the capabilities of the Google Drive app for iOS devices including the iPad, iPhone and iPod and added options for editing, adding and collaborating. These facilities are already part of the package for the Google Drive app that was designed for Android. There are some new features added in the Android version too and each application is now available in the respective application database, the App Store for iOS and Google Play Store for Android.
Drive was released by Google earlier this year in April as the official cloud based software suite to encompass the company’s Google Docs office software suite. The service is free for users who need no more than 5GB of storage but additional storage is available for $2.49 per month per 25GB, which is a rather reasonable price. Cloud data storage has advanced over the past few years and most businesses rely on services such as Google Docs and Drive eliminating the need for carrying around physical hard disks and other storage media. While features like creating and editing documents were already available for Android, the same have been incorporated into Google Drive 1.01 for iOS, as was announced in the company’s official blog.
Interesting features that have been added in this update include notifications when another user edits a shared document in real-time. This feature was available for Google Drive PC since it was released and is rated as one of the most convenient features. Google Drive on iOS also allows users to create folders and move around the files between them directly through the app and even the presentation software has been included in it. Slides and the like can be viewed on full screen and they can be navigated through by swiping the screens and so forth.
All the additions to the iOS version of the application were already present in the Android version and it appears Google wanted to keep it ahead of the curve. The new features for the Android version include the option for users to add, edit and modify comments on documents and view tables in Google Documents. The presentation features are new to both versions of the application and they are bound to be popular with users. Future additions to Google Drive will revolve around real-time collaboration and editing for spreadsheets.
