Google Drive

It’s not often we talk about iOS or iPhone over here at 9to5Google, but for those entrenched within the Apple hardware ecosystem, you have access to a number of iOS-exclusive Google app lock screen widgets you won’t find on Android. Are they any good? We’ve gone hands-on to find out if Android users are missing out.

Previewed earlier this month, Google is now rolling out its first iOS 16 Lock Screen widgets with updates to Chrome and Drive.

Last week, Google announced that it was optimizing widgets for Android tablets. The updated Google Drive widget is now rolled out with an interesting circle design that’s new for Material You.

With iOS 16 launching for the iPhone today, Google is detailing upcoming Lock Screen widgets across six major apps set to arrive over the coming weeks.

Google is continuing its Android tablet push with widgets optimized for large screens. The first tablet widgets are coming from Google Drive and Keep.

A bug that started overnight (PT) sees “Google For Education iOS users with an under-18 age settings” (i.e., K-12 and equivalent students) unable to access Gmail or Google Drive though the iOS apps.

At I/O 2022, Google announced that over 20 first-party apps would be optimized for tablets. We’ve already seen a handful of launches since May, and Google Drive, Docs/Sheets/Slides, and Keep are now set to receive updates that improve multitasking on Android tablets. 

The odds that you come across an app every so often wanting access to Google Drive is generally pretty high. Many apps use your Google Drive as a backup method, making it easy to store your data. Unfortunately, this can also be a security risk. This guide will take you through how to delete app data and revoke access in Google Drive.

Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, etc. is rolling out a new share prompt UI on the web that the company touts as being “simpler.”

Google is updating Drive on the web with useful keyboard shortcuts to make managing your files much simpler. Fortunately, the key combos are pretty standard and align with modern file browsers, but they only work in the Chrome browser.

Following Gmail at the start of this year, Google Drive is the latest iOS app to get new work-focused widgets, while there are also updates for Translate and Chat on iOS in the coming weeks.

Like email, the experience of searching through files can always benefit from improvements. For its part, Google Drive is in the process of beta testing search chips to “help users refine their search and locate files faster.”

As teased in recent weeks, Google Drive now offers a new Material You widget on Android 12 that lets you “quickly access suggested files and search.” 

Over the past few months, Chrome has been surfacing helpful panels on the New Tab Page, and the latest card is for intelligent Google Drive file suggestions.

Google Workspace was announced at the start of October as a rebrand of G Suite and revamped approach to office-less productivity. As part of these changes, all of Google’s Workspace apps are seeing new icons, with the rollout now underway.