Look out, Dropbox, here comes Google.
The web giant on Tuesday opened Drive, its new cloud-based storage and synching service for photos, videos, Google Docs, PDFs and more.
The service is available for Mac and PC users to download, as well as Android users. Support for iOS will presumably come later.
Because Google Docs are built right into Google Drive, users on multiple devices will be able to collaborate in real time on the same Google Doc, according to a press release. Google also lets users search through their stored files by keyword; users can also filter by file type and owner, the way you can in Gmail.
Google Drive comes with 5GB free storage. After that you'll have to open a subscription: $2.49 per month for 25GB, $4.99 per month for 100GB, $49.99 per month for 1TB, and so on. (Visit GigaOm to view the full range of subscription tiers.) When you purchase a Google Drive subscription, Google will expand your Gmail account storage to 25GB.
(TechCrunch points out that Google has expanded Gmail storage from 7GB to 10GB in honor of the Google Drive launch.)
Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome & Apps introduced the new offering in a post on the Google Blog and explained that Drive will be integrated into other Google web services. "You can attach photos from Drive to posts in Google+, and soon you’ll be able to attach stuff from Drive directly to emails in Gmail," wrote Pichai.
"Drive is also an open platform, so we’re working with many third-party developers so you can do things like send faxes, edit videos and create website mockups directly from Drive. To install these apps, visit the Chrome Web Store—and look out for even more useful apps in the future," he went on to say.
Visit Drive.Google.com to find out more about the app.
Google's announcement comes just one day after the launch of a new Dropbox tool that lets users share folders with a simple link. Later the same day, Microsoft outed new apps and features for its SkyDrive service.
Take a look at the slideshow (below) for screenshots of the Google Drive app. (Images courtesy of the Google Play Store.)
