Google Drive gains Touch ID, iPhone 6/6 Plus support, Storage extension and more

Google Drive 3.3 for iOS (iPhone screenshot 003)

After adding passcode protection to Google Drive for the iPhone and iPadĀ half a year ago, Google on Thursday added more coolness to the software.

First and foremost, the app now includes full support for iOS 8 technologies and can finally lock itself behind Touch ID fingerprint authentication.

And should you happen to own one of the new 4.7-inch iPhone 6 orĀ 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus devices, Google Drive will take full advantage of the increasedĀ resolutions to show more files and content.

They’ve also added aĀ new option to save videos from Drive to your device and implemented a handy system-wide Storage extension allowing you to access your Drive in almost any iOS 8 app.

Google Drive is available at no cost in the App Store.

I’m particularly excited about Drive’s newly gained Document Storage extension: it lets me open from and save files to Drive, right within any iOS 8 application as long as it implements standard iCloud file picker.

Here’s saving an image to Google Drive in Pixelmator for iPad.

Google Drive 3.3 for iOS (iPad screenshot 004)

To enable saving to and reading from Google Drive in other apps, fire up any app that supports iCloud Drive (like Apple’s free Keynote, Pages or Numbers), bring up the iCloud Drive interface and tap Locations in the upper left corner.

Google Drive 3.3 for iOS (iPad screenshot 002)

Now choose More and flip the Google Drive switch to ON. From now on, Google Drive will appear in the menu alongside all the otherĀ third-party cloud storage providers you’ve enabled.

Google Drive 3.3 for iOS (iPad screenshot 001)

And if the appā€™s inability to saveĀ videos to an iOS device has been ticking you off, despair no more: at last, Drive lets you save those kitten clips form the cloud to your deviceā€™s photo library.

Sadly, the implementation is somewhat counterintuitive and leaves a lot to be desired. You must first tap the File Info icon, then Open In (seriously?) and finally choose Save Video.

One would normally expect to find this feature nested under the Share menu so hereā€™s hoping someone with the Google Drive team is reading this and taking notes.

Google Drive 3.3 changelog

  • Open from and save to Drive in other apps (iOS 8 only)
  • Unlock Drive using Touch ID (iOS 8 only)
  • Save videos from Drive to your device (tap File Info icon > Open In > Save Video)
  • Support for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus
  • iOS 8 compatibility
  • Bug fixes and performance improvements

By the way, if you sync your Drive withĀ your desktop via Google’sĀ free Drive clientĀ for Mac or Windows, there’sĀ a newĀ Chrome extension in townĀ which makes it easy to open supported Drive files in compatible Mac apps, like Preview, Photoshop, Adobe Reader and more.

Google Drive, a free 50.5-megabyte download, requires an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 7.0 or later.

[App Store via Google+]