Google Drive stalls on LAUNCH DAY For this Mac user, Google Drive is just spin. Despite the fact that Google has made the announcement, it seems that the cloudy storage service is still being rolled out. The Google blog may say: "You can install Drive on your Mac or PC", but many of us cannot. It's too bad as I was looking forward to trying it. Point your …
Sorry, but can't see the point of Google doing this.
I have 25Gb free with my Hotmail account (which can be accessed from any PC also my phone)
I have 50Gb free from Box.net (which can be accessed from any PC and also my phone)
I have 3Gb free from DropBox (which can be accessed from any PC and also my phone, but more importantly, actually syncs over all my devices).
Because of the syncing, DropBox is the only one of these cloud storage services worth having. Unless Google are going to do something to make themselves stand out (and if they are, why not do it at launch) then this is just another Google "Meh" service.
Your hotmail account also syncs with all your devices (though you can also set one or more devices not to sync with the others). Google drive has a phone app too.
But the bigger point of Google Drive, which is unique AFAIK, is that web apps can use your gdrive to store data you create and edit on other websites. It's all sandboxed, naturally.
I guess Google already have a substantial user base and Drive neatly dovetails with their existing Docs service, allowing some types of files stored in Drive to be viewed/edited from within a browser. The sharing feature is pretty straightforward but I haven't yet tried the feature where you can hand ownership of some shared files to someone else.
@ OP: At last! Thanks for saying what needed to be said! I just love the amount of replies to your post basically suggesting you be attached to the proverbial IT-ducking stool for pointing out the truth and the flaming obvious. I quite like Google, but jeez folks - get a grip, this isn't exactly new tech.
@JohnG: MS have had 25GB online storage for *free* for a while now, and this already ties in with *their* existing docs service AND people can share work, set permission levels etc etc Looking at the blog post... oh wow Google can do this too now... kewl... yet they want me to pay for anything over 5Gb? Maybe I will rush to sign up when I fill up my Skydrive or Dropbox accounts.... wow... neat...
*Gives Google a cookie* - "Yes dear, that blue Santa Claus on the fridge looks brilliant" - *resumes reading paper* :P
I'm a Mac user, but currently using a PC at work. But i also get no option to access the GoogleDrive, just to request notification for when my drive is ready.
I guess they need some considerable amount of time to set up the 5gb of storage space?
Not a problem, I've no intention of using it, but seems it's far short of being ready for everyone at the moment.
True - it's like the author thinks he's being picked on because he has a mac. Maybe someone who's a member of a racial minority who can't access the drive will say Google are racist! :-)
I've been waiting for my e-mail to let me know it's available. I tried using it on my Android phone first and (as if it matters) am now using a PC.
I haven't tried Mesh since Microsoft ditched their last online synchronised storage system, called... Mesh.
Admittedly, they did give a nice long warning, giving plenty of time to back it up, but I would have been happier if they could have just moved my data across rather than cancel the service then re-open it again with the same name.
Why in the world would you (or anyone) be so interested in dumping 5 gigs of your personal data on a brand new and as of yet unproved service? I'm not even going to look at it for at least a month or so, because I have more important things to do than shaking out the bugs in a brand new system.
Its hardly brand new technology - ive been storeing my stuff on the google docs "cloud" for ages.
In my view, its just a way for Google to make the non-technical people realise you can do exactly what people like myself have been doing with Google Docs for ages! same service, fancy new name....
You wouldn't put PERSONAL data online.
You'd put data there that you want world+dog to see, like scenic visas of the last time you visited Joshua Tree.
Your dick pics with the scenic vistas of Joshua Tree in the background stay on your own computer, for the FBI to look through, where they belong.
This post has been deleted by its author
As some others have said it's not that they hate you for being an Apple fanboi, they just hate you. But don't worry they hate me too.
Although I've not been able to access Drive from Windows I did upgrade my Docs app on Android which supposedly turned it into Drive. So far I can't see what's changed other than the name.
jeepers - what a bunch of whiney pants!
I bet you lot sit in the back of cars pestering the driver with "are we nearly there yet"
Those chaps at google have and continue to make your lives easier because you are too idle to do things yourself. Honestly, if you are that bothered then simply bow out gracefully and find another solution. So far google has given us (for free, albeit some advertising and privacy concerns) world beating apps.
I don't see microsoft giving us street view, nor apple giving us a way to share docs.
No pudding for you guys until you eat your greens!
Well I got logged in right away..- a few other people seem to have had to wait a few hours - much less than the wait for apple updates when a new one is announced and the phones stuck in semi- upgrades - and it seems better managed with a nice message asking you to wait and a very prompt notice to say when you can access -
Google have had a few flops recently (wave, and to some extent plus) but this definitely ISN'T one of them
Its got more free space than Dropbox - and is much more cheaply expandable than the competition (for those of us who don't want to spam our friends for freespace by referals (I hate it when peoplel do that to me!!)
It syncs like dropbox and integrates nicely with google docs! It meets the competition head on as it is right now AND google say they have more improvement on the way
Well done google on this !
YOu hit the spot
...so it's not about Macs, it's just the usual utter incompetence from Google.
Google has still a lot to learn about customer service and the fact that Schmidt is gone and Larry boy replaced him really does not help this process - it's actually quite the other way...
But, for this Mac user, there is no download link and a piece of text on the top right of the screen says: "Your Google Drive is not ready yet."
Well Google, which is it? Is the damn drive ready or not?
Erm. Well it exists as a product that they're rolling out but it does quite plainly state that your drive is not yet ready. I think that answers your question ....
Last night I was able to install and run Google drive for both Windows and Android. However, the Windows install took forever to download and forever to connect and kept giving time-out errors along with a few more general errors. No such problems with the Android version but then, I only had half a dozen Google Docs in there and, as I couldn't get the Windows version to work, I couldn't see how well it synched new stuff.
Anyway, it all seems a bit shite compared to SugarSync.
Then you're paying more money for a less robust service.
Easy to misplace a USB key, and if your server is connected to the web, its only a matter of time before someone attempts to hack it, or the HDD crashes, or the data centre floods etc...
"Old School" is not the best approach when it comes to data storage ;)
My drive wasn't ready for me yesterday when I went to look - so I requested to be notified. I have yet to receive a notification email - unless Gmail considered it spam - but my drive has been activated anyway.
Ah - just checked - the email did arrive - in the Bulk Mail folder in GMail - so I never saw it :/
I find it quite funny that YouTube and Google Play emails end up in the bulk mail folder too - and I haven't set GMail up to filter them there.....
Anyhow - Dropbox supports linux - and is being used to backup my webserver, my squeezecenter and various other machines. Until Google can replicate this - I have no use for Google Drive (other than Google Docs)
After all, look at megaupload, and just about any online storage system will run the same risk.
However, google , unlike megaupload, is so cozy with the feds, they will probably have less chance of being shut down.
Course I cant wait to see what happens the first time they have a "security breach".
Local Storage is more risky!!
If someone breaks into your house and takes your hardware, they not only have your data, but they also have your physical location, your car registration number (if parked on your drive) a good idea what your wife/kids look like, access to your bins for more clues about you. way more information than they could gather from a compromised cloud storage service.
Not to mention that your local storage is likely at risk from fire/flood/kids/power
surges/hardware failure/lightning strikes etc etc...
If your concerned about cloud storage, encrypt it before you store it, and store it on two networks (Amazon S3, Storegate and Google docs are my prefered services)
why is it only apple users that tend start articles or points they are trying to make with "For this Mac user" or "as an iphone owner / user / licker".
What you perhaps should have started with was "as an impartial tech journalist / blogger" and then writing an article about about google announcing a FREE service that your not obligated to use, and then not getting it up and running right away and and embarressing themselves somewhat. Or that google are rolling the service out in a piecemeal fashion or maybe trying to reach a source in google and find out some facts or a statement about why there are issues for some people across all the platforms they said it would work on not getting the service while others can.
Or perhaps you can someonhow instead write an article making it all about how you are a mac user and how google is disapointing you as a mac user and how you cant get something on your mac from google that they said you can and how because you are a mac user this is a bad thing and if google wants mac users to be google users and start articles with "as a google user" they had better jolly well get this thing working on a mac for mac users.
Sorry but its not just mac users, every platform has the same issue some people are getting it, some are having to press the little notify me button. the difference is most of them arent as whinny.
Maybe I misunderstand, but if you can't convince all the CIOs to give away their intellectual property away by doing everything in Google Docs, simply give all their staff the ability to back up all their work on Google servers, or is this not how it works?
Hey presto ! pwned.
Google Drive, looks to me like the intellectual property industry's dream come true.
(Or did I misunderstand how it all works? It's just I was wondering, can you patent anything once it's been on a Google Drive?)
Since when did Google grant everyone access to a product/service on "launch day"? I went to the site, read the conditions and waited. I didn't go for the online wahmbulance call like some on here. My patience was rewarded with access via Mac, PC and Android devices this morning.
Get over yourself.
So around 100 million people want to play with something new and some don't get instant access.
Does it matter?
That's the trouble with something that's FREE - everyone wants one to play with it.
And they have the nerve to charge $2.49 if you want 25Gb of storage - what's the world coming to when people have to pay for things??? Don't any of the complainers realise that there are many services charging twice that for less space, and yet they are complaining about the free service.
Here's a free service - I'll make you a web site for free and manage it for ever for free. But only for people I like. Going to complain about that? (PS yes, I do this for real for some people. Just not you.)
Will the journo report when he DOES get his account activated?
Will the "article" he wrote be updated with a progress report in a few days?
Will we have to read more rants like his?
The author sounds like a typical Mac fanboi, whinging when things don't go their way. Instead of bitching, why not use iCloud? It's a beloved Apple service, I'm sure they'd love another of their drone zombies signing up :)
Seriously I wish Google would come up with something of their own rather than following others. I have my own cloud drive! It's called my webserver with 6 TERABYTES of cloud space, you can all keep your pathetic 3 and 5 'gigabytes' ;) All this cloud hype is just a fad, it's all FTP that's been around for years, I write cloud frontends for MegaCloud.
At least the upload speed appears to be twice as fast as that of the two main competitors..
I suppose Google could have benefited of their famous "beta" labeling approach -- less whining (nowadays we're all being experimented on anyway, at least when it comes down to software of general use -- hopefully not so much in case of nuclear plants; military/defense systems; cars; planes and such are involved).
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