One popular trend of the past year is the combination of an office suite with cloud storage into one program. Microsoft users have Office 365 and SkyDrive while Google users have Google Drive. While both are popular, Drive has a solid mobile app that’s available on nearly all mobile platforms. iOS and Android users are in luck as the app has recently been updated.
The latest update to Drive’s mobile app brings features that have been applied to both the Android and iOS version of the app, but are more geared to entice iOS users to adopt the app. The biggest feature added to the app is that iOS users can now create and edit docs on their iPad and iPhone, and users can see changes made by other users. The document is shared with in real time.
iOS users of Google’s Presentation, also part of Google Drive, can now access speaker notes, go into full screen mode while giving presentations and swipe left or right on their screen to change slides. This is a great addition, especially if you use a tablet to give presentations.
On the file management side, users of the mobile app can now create and manage folders while also uploading files directly to Drive from their phones. Fear not Android users, Google hasn’t left you out in the cold, all these updates also apply to the Android version. You can also view and add comments to word documents, while also being able to view tables.
Unfortunately, this update doesn’t show any love for spreadsheets, leaving the mobile app rather lacking in support for an otherwise solid spreadsheet app. Google has noted that they will be bringing incremental updates to both mobile apps in the near future, with the next updates rumored to include native editing (the same as if you were on a computer/using Google Chrome) and real-time collaboration for spreadsheets.
Do you use Google Drive in your office? What about the mobile apps? Let us know what you think of the apps, and if you’d like to learn more give us a call.
Published on 25th September 2012 by Jeanne DeWitt.
