July 2, 2012

Google Drive arrives for iPad - utter disappointment

Im so disappointed. I've been waiting and waiting and hoping it was the answer to working with Google docs offline...a cloud based solution for people who don't use Macs. And so it arrived- somewhat quietly I thought- and no wonder, it's just short of useless.

From Eric Zeman at Information Week Hardware http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/240002924
"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." 
This is all true. I was able to search my documents with no problems, make them available offline (a.k.a., download them to my iPad), and set up collaborators. That's all easy.
But you can't edit the documents from the iPad or iPhone in the Google Drive app for iOS at all. Neither online nor offline. You can't create new documents, either. You can't sort through your documents based on date or any other defining characteristic. For example, I prefer to see my Docs listed in descending chronological order (newest to oldest). That's not possible in Google Drive for iOS. The top-most visible document is something I created in 2008. Last, you can't upload anything from the device to your Google Drive account. In other words, Google Drive for iOS is nothing more than a glorified document viewer.
I have to agree with him, this is pathetic. I've spent much too much time trying to find a good writing app that allows me to just pick up and write. I may finally cave and either buy an Android or more likely an app such as DocumentsToGo or GDocs. Again, what a disappointment!

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