Google Drive 3.4.1

There’s no shortage of cloud storage solutions, but you need to make your pick carefully if you’re going to store your digital life in the cloud. Safety comes first, commodity second, but not everyone makes their choices based on this criteria.

Google Drive is a good choice if you want a basic cloud service that keeps your stuff safe behind a padlock and with a simple enough interface that you can manage all your files on a small iPhone screen.

Looks simple at first, gets cluttered later

Drive starts off fairly simple, but its UI gets cluttered as you add new stuff to your cloud storage compartment. Soon enough you’ll realize that without a clear navigation path you become lost in the app. Of course, you can always access the options panel at the top left of the UI and navigate to My Drive, Recent, Uploads, etc.

The Starred and On Device sections should really be just one. In many cloud apps, starred items generally get saved for offline viewing (such as Dropbox, and Evernote), but no one says they all have to be the same.

iOS 8 users can now open from and save to Drive from other apps. It’s also possible to unlock Drive by using the nifty Touch ID if you have it set up, so you can save some time spent typing in credentials.If you want, you can save videos from Drive straight to your device by tapping the File Info icon, choosing “Open In” and picking the “Save Video” option.

You can do a lot in the confines of 15GB

You get 15GB for free and the ability to view documents, PDFs, photos, videos and other formats, as well as search for files by name and content, share files and collaborate on them with others if you want, and see file details. Other actions include Open In..., Print, and Save to Camera Roll.

You can set a passcode lock on the app so nobody but you can access the data on your device. However, as with any cloud service, there’s a small amount of risk involved when you put your digital life in the cloud.

Add to watchlist:

File managerCloud storageBackupArchive

• Dropbox 3.8
• Box for iPhone and iPad 3.6.3
• iFileExplorer 7.1
• OneDrive 5.1

Portable version:

• Google Drive for Android