2 February 2009
Google's (in)famous GDrive revealed?
This text was recently uncovered from the source code of a file used by Google Pack:
“GDrive provides reliable storage for all of your files, including photos, music and documents. GDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere, anytime, and from any device – be it from your desktop, web browser or cellular phone.”
More info on the Google Operating System blog (unofficial).
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Patternhead
# February 2, 2009 - 4:04 pm
At last… a conspiracy theory that’s proved to be true!
Rob Haywward
# February 2, 2009 - 4:11 pm
haha! Interesting find :)
Todd Dietrich
# February 2, 2009 - 4:12 pm
Yeah they’re Google so they have the potential to have a huge user base due to way more exposure, but Dropbox is an amazing product that seems to do exactly what the GDrive will/does supposedly do.
Ryan
# February 2, 2009 - 4:16 pm
@Todd – We use DropBox her and we love it.
Andrew Rossborough
# February 2, 2009 - 4:27 pm
I’ve only glanced at dropbox so far, found it a little slow when uploading, but could have been the connection I was on at the time. Didn’t want to take the plunge and upgrade at the speeds I was getting.
Might open it up again and give it another go on your recommendation :)
Gareth Poole
# February 2, 2009 - 4:27 pm
Dropbox is awesome! It’d be a shame for Google to take market share from them!
It’d be great if there were some sort of Time Machine support for offsite automated backup, but I guess we won’t be seeing capacities over 20GB for a while.
Luca
# February 2, 2009 - 4:35 pm
I think Google has already too much data from me. I’ll continue using Dropbox – it’s working well in every OS I use
Andrew Spittle
# February 2, 2009 - 5:32 pm
Sounds like it’d be cool to see, but Dropbox is all I need. To me, it’s everything that iDisk should have been.
keith
# February 2, 2009 - 5:53 pm
It’ll not offer any more value than dropbox to begin with – but once it starts integrating more usefully with other apps within the Google suite, then it will convert us over. If you can save attachments from Gmail straight to G-Drive, then it be cool.
Adam Wintle
# February 3, 2009 - 2:56 am
One of the founders (Arash F.) kinda let it slip that DropBox might be in talks with or be acquired by Google for GDrive on their forums: http://forums.getdropbox.com/topic.php?id=6424&replies=12
I love DropBox, I use it for my business and recently upgraded to their 50GB plan, its so awesomely useful that I’m starting to think how I ever managed without it!
One thing that does sadden me a bit is looking back to when Google acquired Writely it lost all of its charm and character… but on the upside it had the whole force of Google behind it to push it forward and make it what it is today – DropBox has neat little illustrations in their emails and communications, and fun bits of personality in and around its app.
What I personally reckon would be best is if they did what Yahoo! did when they acquired Flickr – keep the brand intact and build onto that fun feeling (maintaining the Flickr.com domain name, etc – Writely.com just goes to Google Docs) – but somehow I reckon Google will just assimilate it.
Christopher Francis O'Donnell
# February 3, 2009 - 4:53 am
Uh… doesn’t G-Technology make another product with the same name, the G-drive, which is one of the best external drives you can buy? They must’ve been beaten to the trademark office by Google.
Christopher Francis O'Donnell
# February 3, 2009 - 4:54 am
Oh. Whoops. So Google got around the trademark issue by removing the dash.
Matthew Lawson
# February 3, 2009 - 1:07 pm
It is one big step forward to international roaming OS!
I’m excited are you?
Dominic Cross
# February 3, 2009 - 5:28 pm
GDrive rumours have been about for years and they haven’t changed the spec of the product at all in all this time. Dropbox is good, but Livedrive (www.livedrive.com) is more in tune with the GDrive goal and is already available. A lot faster than Dropbox too!