Google Launches Drive (As in Hard Drive, Not Cars)

You might have caught wind of the announcement yesterday: Google launched Drive, its new cloud-based file storage service.

In a nutshell: you create and work on files, store them on Drive and access them seamlessly from any device. You can use up to 5Gb for free and after that there are multiple storage plans up to16 Terabytes (if you want to shell out $800/month). It even integrates with Google Docs (although these don't account for the storage usage in Drive).

I managed to download it from the Play store onto my tablet, but because it's not yet readily available it only synched with my Google Docs for now. Apparently I will get an email when it is fully rolled out.

Personally, I am looking forward to the service. I already use Evernote for this to a certain extent, but sometimes I forget to download attachments and then don't have access to them offline (even with Evernote paid version).

I predict, however, that you will have 1 of 2 responses:

• If you are a Google fanboy, you will rejoice. (Video 1 is for you)
• If you are an Apple fanboy, you will roll your eyes and sigh loudly saying that you've had access to this (called iCloud) since November. (Video 2 is for you)

As a Google fangirl, colour me happy. The strength of Drive will be its ability to integrate with all the other Google products (I already use). I'm looking forward to seeing what it can do.

What about you? Will you use this or are you already happy on iCloud 9?

Video 1: Google Drive


Video 2: Apple iCloud