Google I/O 2012: Google Drive coming to iOS devices

With the iPhone turning five today, Google have decided to give it and its fellow iOS devices a little present that will certainly delight most users. At the Google I/O conference, Google announced that Google Drive will now be available for iOS devices, a few short weeks after being presented to Android devices.

As per a post on an official Google Blog, the tech giant states, “We launched the Drive app for Android phones and tablets a few weeks ago, and starting today, Google Drive is available for your iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. With the Drive app, you can open PDFs, photos, videos, documents and anything else stored in your Drive while you’re on the go. You can also search all your files, add collaborators to documents, and make files available offline to view them even without an internet connection. For blind and low-vision users, the app also works great in VoiceOver mode.”

Now available for iOS devices

Google has just officially pulled the wraps off Google Drive, their own take on cloud storage solution. Google Drive is available to anyone with a Google account and to start off with, you get 5GB of storage free of cost. Google Docs has also been integrated into Google Drive, allowing you to share, edit and access all your Office documents and PDFs in real time. The main purpose of Google drive, however, just like Dropbox, Box.net, SugarSync, etc. is that it is a one stop shop for all your personal files, be it photos, video, music or just about anything else.

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Commenting on some of the features of Google Drive, a report by CNET states, “One of the demonstrations showed how you could scan a postal receipt and then search for it in your Drive files. And photos are also searchable, even if they aren’t properly labeled. For example, a picture of someone taken at the Great Pyramid in Egypt can be stored in Google Drive, and you can find it by typing in “Photos of us at the pyramids.” Even though there was no label that said “pyramids,” the Google technology is able to recognize the picture as one taken in front of the pyramids.”

Google has integrated Drive tightly with their other services as well and you can now attach photos from Drive to posts in Google +. Upcoming features include the ability to attach files from Drive directly to emails. Google is also working with third-party developers to enable sending of faxes, editing videos and creating website mockups, directly from Drive.

This free app is already available in the App Store and Google have offered free storage of 5GB to get you started with it. While 5GB is enough for most people, you do have the option to increase the storage space to 25GB for a yearly fee of $24.99, which includes storage options for Google Drive as well as Picasa.  Google Drive is currently available for PC, Mac, Android and now iOS devices.