Google announced today that it’s expanding the Local Guides feature it has for Google Maps that aims to act as a community-driven virtual guide for points of interest with an integrated rewards program (which it could position as a Yelp competitor).

Among the biggest update for the expansion is new rewards for users, allowing access to upgraded Google Drive storage, early access to Google products and features, and more.

Google detailed the new rewards, which include the ability for users to earn a free 1 TB upgrade of Drive storage by accumulating a certain number of points. The top reward will make users eligible to attend Google’s inaugural summit in 2016: “… you’ll be able to meet other top Guides from around the world, explore the Google campus, and get the latest info about Google Maps. Look out for details early next year.”

Here’s a look at the new rewards:

Level 1 (0 – 4 points): Enter exclusive contests (think new Google devices!) in select countries.

Level 2 (5 – 49 points): Get early access to new Google products and features.

Level 3 (50 – 199 points): Show up in the Google Maps app with your official Local Guides badge.

Level 4 (200 – 499 points): Receive a free 1 TB upgrade of your Drive storage, allowing you to keep all the stories, photos, and videos from your travels in one safe place.

Level 5 (500+ points): The very top Local Guides will become eligible to apply to attend our inaugural summit in 2016, where you’ll be able to meet other top Guides from around the world, explore the Google campus, and get the latest info about Google Maps. Look out for details early next year.

Users can earn points by using the feature in Google Maps to do things like leaving a review, answering questions, uploading photos, and submitting fixes.

The expansion also includes an update that makes it easier for contributors to view and track local guides they’ve submitted.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puDNfWfILl4]

Google is rolling out updates this week for Google Docs and Sheets for Android as well as Google Drive on the web, the company announced in two separate blog posts today.

For Sheets, the update brings the ability to “add new and reply to existing comments,” while the updated Google Docs for Android app gets the ability to see suggestions and comments when in the app’s Print Layout view. “resolve, close, accept, or reject those comments and suggestions—making it simpler to move between their desktop and mobile devices.”

Google also highlighted improvements to editing charts in the Sheets app on Android:

…if a user a selects a single cell and inserts a chart, we’ll automatically expand that data selection to include the immediately surrounding cells. This will make it easier for users to create robust charts with relevant information. In addition, when an employee creates a new chart, they’ll now see three recommended chart types, which we’ll suggest based on the data they’ve selected.

And lastly for Sheets, users will start to notice the 400 new fonts Google began rolling out to Sheets on the web this week.

As for Google Drive, the web app gets improved organization with new smarter sorting in the app’s ‘Recent’ view:

The new sorting experience removes the existing sorting dropdown options (‘Last modified,’ ‘Last modified by me,’ and ‘Last opened by me’) and replaces them with a dynamically-generated view based on the actions of the person using Drive. Items will continue to be segmented into time-based sections (‘Today,’ ‘Earlier this week,’ etc), and will now indicate whether each item was opened, modified, or uploaded by the user directly in the UI. The smarter sorting ensures that items acted upon by the user are more likely to be shown than items acted upon by other collaborators.

The updated Google Sheets and Docs apps are rolling out now.

A new update to Google Drive for iOS brings a couple notable, highly-requested features to the app. Included in the update, users will now be able to select multiple files at once in order to perform an action like saving for offline, adding a star to important files, or rearranging and organizing. The new feature is something that has long been requested by users and makes managing and sharing multiple files at once much easier than in the past.

In addition, the update includes the ability to share, rename or view file details much quicker with new quick share buttons when tapping on a file.

And lastly, Google says the updated app will include the usual performance improvements.

The updated Google Drive app for iOS is available on the App Store now.

Google Drive for the mobile web has always restricted editing to just Docs files — attempting to edit Sheets or Slides files required downloading the Google Drive app for iOS or Android. That changes today. No, you won’t be able to edit Sheets or Slides files now, but rather Google is also killing off the editing capabilities in Docs for mobile web.

The change makes total sense, if for consistency at the very least. But Google says it’s because the Drive native mobile app is “easier to use and offers more robust functionality.” Native apps typically have more access to the hardware and system-level software capabilities of the devices they’re installed on than web apps, and since they are downloaded directly onto the device, much of the boilerplate user interface doesn’t have to be loaded from the Internet each time the user goes to use them.

From now on, when a Drive user opens a Docs, Sheets, or Slides document from the mobile web, they’ll be presented with one of Google’s new app install banners that make it easy to launch or download the native app, and then be taken directly to the file they were initially viewing in the browser. Tapping the pencil icon in the top right will also trigger the banner to appear.

The user interface across the mobile web viewers for the three aforementioned editing tools have also been cleaned up to create a more consistent experience, which is nice.

Google is rolling out an update for the Google Drive for Android app today that it says brings a long list of performance improvements and polish.

Google says the update also includes enhancements to PDFs with “the ability to see completed form data.”

The updated Google Drive for Android app, version 2.2.183.15, should be available to all through Google Play over the coming week.

Google released updates to other Android apps today including new features for Google Docs and Slides and improvements for Gmail.

Google today announced that it’s adding new shortcuts for its Google Drive web apps— Docs, Sheets, and Slides— to the App Launcher feature accessible from the upper right corner of most its web services (pictured right). The new shortcuts join services like Search, Mail, Calendar, and Drive that were previously accessible from the App Launcher.

For regular users, Google is adding Docs to the main section of the App Launcher and making Sheets and Slides shortcuts available by opting in when visiting the apps:

And the next time you visit sheets.google.com or slides.google.com, you’ll see the option to add Sheets and Slides to the launcher as well. Remember that you can always rearrange the icons to your liking by just clicking and dragging them around… One note–if you’ve already customized the arrangement of your icons, you’ll need to visit docs.google.com and click “Add a shortcut” in the App Launcher to get the Docs icon to appear.

For Google Apps users, Google will put Docs, Slides, and Sheets shortcuts in the App Launcher by default and bump Groups and Contacts into the “More” section of the launcher.

Apps users can expect the change to kick in early next month.

Google has announced today that, following a slew of updates that came to the Google Drive collection of iOS apps last week, the company’s Android apps for Drive are also receiving a few updates today:

Docs has some new, handy line spacing controls that let you choose single, double or fractional line spacing, Sheets has scrollbars for faster navigation, and you can now insert, move, resize and rotate text boxes, shapes and lines in the updated Slides app.

All three apps are now even friendlier with Office files with easier file creation and other updates, and we’ve added better accessibility options and squashed some bugs.

The updates coming to this set of apps may seem minor, but there are a few notable additions here. Scrollbars in sheets is going to make that app much more usable, and the ability to create and edit graphics within Slides is going to make it much easier to make presentations that are closer to what you’d be able to do on the desktop.

Google says that the updates should be rolling out today. If you don’t already have them, you can get the Docs, Sheets, and Slides Google Drive apps over on the Play Store for free.

Google has made a couple of updates to its Drive and Docs editors that deliver smarter sharing and make it easier for collaborating with others. Starting today, after adding an email address to the sharing dialogue on either service, you will see profile pictures for each person you’ve added and, after adding two collaborators, suggested recipients based on who you frequently share emails or files with.

Google has today announced that the Google Drive app within Hangouts has been discontinued, and is being replaced by the ability to share links to Drive files directly within the Hangouts chat window.

In an effort to make its office software suite more appealing to business types, Google Drive desktop users can now use Drawings to make elbow and curved connections between items. These new options are ideal for visual projects like flowcharts and instruction manuals.

Google announced today that it’s rolling out the ability to customize themes in its Google Forms web app. It’s also adding a number of new pre-made survey designs to the current selection of templates.

One of your top requests has been the ability to add your own personal touch to forms, and starting today you can with custom themes.

You can customize a theme using a new “Change theme” button in the toolbar (pictured above). From there, you can add your own photos or logos to the header, customize fonts and colors, pick a background, and more.

Google also gave a look at some of the new themes it’s added:

More on adding custom themes in Forms here.

Logitech today revealed its newest line of smartphone cases, including the Protection+ for the Samsung Galaxy S5. The cases are designed to absorb shocks and other potential damage to smartphones while maintaining a slim design.

The corners of the Protection+ are specially-designed to absorb shocks without breaking and dissipate the energy of the impact across the surface of the case. The case can keep your Galaxy S5 safe after drops of up to nearly six feet and goes beyond the U.S. military’s requirements for a “rugged” device.

Logitech also debuted its +trip and +drive car accessories, which allow users to mount nearly an smartphone and case (including the Protection+, of course) to an air vent (+trip) or windshield/dashboard (+drive).

The Protection+ case will retail for $34.99, while the +trip mount will cost $29.99, and the +drive mount will run for $49.99. All three products will be available for purchase in August.

Along with all of the other numbers and company updates Sundar Pichai shared today, he also just announced during the enterprise portion of the event that Google has now hit 190 million Google Drive users. That’s thanks to strong growth among enterprise customers and includes only active users over a 30-day period. The announcement comes alongside new features announced for the Drive suite of apps across devices.

More stats and numbers from Google’s I/O Keynote today are here.

A nice little enhancement for Google Drive users started rolling out last night with the ability to delete files directly from within any given app’s editor. For instance, if you’re editing a Google Doc, Sheet, or Slide, you will no longer have to return to your main list of files in Drive to delete it.

The new option is located under File > Move to Trash as pictured below:

We knew it was coming and now it’s here. Today, Google rolled out a new version of Drive for Android that removes document editing from the cloud-storage application. This change in direction is an immediate follow up to Google’s new trio of productivity apps that released last month. If you still haven’t picked up Docs and Sheets, the updated version of Drive will now display a view-only version of documents and will prompt you to install Google’s new standalone apps for editing options. Although some users will need to download three apps, document editing can now be done offline, so that’s a plus.

Google just added a nice new feature to Google Drive that will make it easier for users to track and review changes made to files and folders. The new Activity Stream sits next to your files and folders and shows all changes that are being made by contributors on your shared files. You’ll also be able to filter the stream by selecting a specific file or multiple files as highlighted in the gif above. Here’s how to access it:

When you open Drive, click the ⓘ button in the top right corner and the activity stream will appear, showing you who has taken action on files and folders in My Drive. You’ll see a rundown of what your team has been doing, such as editing and commenting on notes, adding a new spreadsheet, renaming a presentation, and more.

The new activity stream isn’t available to everyone yet, but Google says it will roll out to all over the next week.

Google Operating System blog, which has a good track record for leaking upcoming features for Google products, today posted a screenshot that shows a redesigned attachments UI for Gmail being tested internally. In the image above we can see the text “Dogfood confidential – submit feedback on the new attachments experience,” along with what looks to be a simplified interface for attachments in emails.

This is what attachments currently look like in emails:

And this is the new attachment interface:

The report speculates that Google could be dropping the “View” and “Download” options and instead just sending users to Google Drive when clicking an attachment.

Google is making a few improvements to its Slides presentation tool in Google Drive today. The company announced a few new features for the web app including real-time text cursors and some user requested tweaks for the recently rolled out editable themes feature. 

As you can see in the gif above, much like in Google Docs, you’ll now see contributors’ cursors with names in real-time as they type.

Google is also adding the ability to reuse a theme, add objects to themes and layouts, and update text styles in placeholders:

Reuse custom themes in new presentations 

There may come a time when you want to reuse a theme that you worked hard to create, and now you can—just select “From another presentation…” in the theme chooser.

Add objects to themes and layouts 

While editing a slide, you can now right click on any object and add it to a theme or a specific layout so that the next time you want to use it, it will already be part of the slide template.

Update text styles in placeholders

Let’s say you’re editing a body placeholder, and you change the font of your text (or other style properties, such as bold, color, etc.). You can now easily apply this formatting across slides that use the same layout by right clicking on the placeholder and selecting “Update in theme.”

 

Google announced today that its rolling out the ability to print Google Forms created in Drive that will be automatically reformatted to make it easier to fill out on paper:

Say goodbye to the days of trying to create a form or survey in a text document — you can now print your Google Forms with ease. When you print a form, each question is formatted in a way that makes it simple for people to fill in when printed on paper. To try it out, just create a form and press the print button.

The ability to view Drive and Calendar results within Gmail as you type was previously only available to those signed up to the Gmail Search Field Trial. Today Google announced that it will finally be rolling out the feature to all users after receiving positive feedback from field trial users.

The feature will for now only be available in English to US users and should be available in the coming week.

On top of rolling out some new features to Google Drive earlier this morning including profile pictures and one-click group chat, Google also just announced some new additions to Drive’s offline mode.

When using Google Drive in offline mode, users will no longer have to worry about what files have been made available offline. Google will now automatically make Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides available offline as long as you have enough storage. Users will also now be able to create and edit drawings in offline mode.

The new offline features will be available to users in the coming days alongside the new group-chat and profile pictures features.