Newsletter
It is mid-week and that means it is time for the latest Google updates to start coming through, the first of which has now already been announced and seems to be en route to Google Drive. Google has this morning announced the latest update and this one seems to be one which will focus mainly on the sharing of documents through Drive and specifically on mobile devices.
In terms of the details, the first major point worth noting is that sharing files on Drive will now come with the ability to receive notifications of shared files on your smartphone. These will come in the form of standard notifications and will offer the option to expand the notification and open the shared file directly from the notification panel. Likewise, it seems that if you are the person sharing a file with someone else, then you will also be receiving notifications, although, the sender notifications will focus on advising that someone has requested access to view or open a shared file. Once again, the user will be able to reply or grant access to the shared file directly from the notification.
Another interesting addition is that Google is opening up access to shared files without the need for a Google account to be signed in on the smartphone. This is a feature which is already available to those who use Drive on the web, but for Android devices, a user had to be signed in to open the file. With the latest update, it seems this will no longer be the case and users can view shared files without being signed in. Of course, how often you will be using an Android smartphone and not signed in, does remain to be seen, although, there presumably is a need for this sort of feature as Google is introducing it. In terms of the actual update, the blog announcement from Google does detail that some users will already be seeing some of these feature on their Drive app now and while the update is in progress, it will be rolling out over the next week. So it could be a few days before you see the update arrive on your device.