Storage

Amazon launches dedicated iOS app for its Cloud Drive service

Christian Zibreg ∙ July 6, 2015

Online retail giant Amazon on Monday launched a brand new application in the App Store to give iPhone and iPad owners a quick way to access their documents, spreadsheets, music, photos and videos stored in Cloud Drive, Amazon's storage locker in the cloud.

The new app, called Amazon Cloud Drive, is available at no charge in the App Store. For the uninitiated, Amazon's Cloud Drive service offers you a choice between unlimited storage for your photos in exchange for twelve bucks per year, or $60 per year for an Unlimited Everything plan.

A free 90-day trial of Cloud Drive is available here.

Google Drive receives Material Design overhaul with faster scrolling, syncing and image viewing

Christian Zibreg ∙ June 3, 2015

Google on Wednesday issued a version 4.0 update to its free of charge Google Drive for iOS application in the App Store. The first thing you'll notice is a brand new design which follows Material Design guidelines set forth by Google itself.

In addition to a cleaned-up interface, other changes in Google Drive 4.0 for iPhone and iPad include much faster syncing of your files, as well as image viewing.

Scrolling performance has been improved, too, and they've finally implemented iOS's standard swipe gesture to go back.

Seagate Backup Plus Fast: a good external drive for Mac users?

Jeff Benjamin ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

As a MacBook Pro with Retina Display owner, disk space is at a premium. My MacBook features 256GB of SSD flash storage, which isn't exactly tiny in most use cases, but is downright microscopic when it comes to editing video and audio.

My video files are extra large due to the fact that I shoot in 4K the majority of the time. In fact, simply gathering the footage for this video review was somewhere in the neighborhood of 25GB, and that's not even an in-depth video like an iPad review or an Apple Watch review.

With this in mind, it became apparently clear that I was going to need an external storage solution. But I also needed something that was fast enough to adequately handle the throughput required by 4K video.

After lots of research, I ended up purchasing the Seagate Backup Plus Fast drive. It's a 4TB RAID 0 drive, so it's fairly fast. A couple of weeks into my purchase, I've accumulated several hours of hands-on experience with this drive. Does it live up to my expectations?

How to get 100GB of free OneDrive storage

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 19, 2015

Microsoft's cloud storage thing called OneDrive has been on fire lately. The service has been generous with free space in the past few months. For starters, each account gets fifteen gigabytes of free storage and Office 365 subscribers get to enjoy unlimited storage as long as they continue paying their subscription. For some time now the Windows maker's been offering free OneDrive storage to US residents who've signed up for Bing Rewards program.

Starting today, this offer is now available globally so everyone can now get 100GB of free OnDrive storage for two years. Here's how you can claim your free storage.

Check your Google Account security and get 2 GB of permanent Drive storage bump

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 10, 2015

Today is the Safer Internet Day. In joining the Internet to celebrate the occasion, the search giant Google today announced an initiative that invites you to run a 30-second check on your Google Account in exchange for an additional two gigabytes of extra Google Drive storage.

As a quick reminder, Google Drive offers fifteen gigabytes of free storage to share across Google Drive, Gmail and Google+ Photos, or thirty gigs per account if you use Google Apps at work or school.

So, if you spare two minutes of your precious time and complete a simple security checkup on your Google Account by next Tuesday, February 17, Google will treat you to an additional 2 GB of Drive storage by the month's end for a total of 17 GB of storage allowance.

How to remove unwanted books and PDF from iPhone or iPad to make space

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 9, 2025

Learn how to remove books, PDFs, and audiobooks from the iPhone or iPad Books app to free local space and clean up your library.

Google Drive for iOS now lets you upload files from other apps and cloud services

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 16, 2014

Following up on a recent Google Drive update which brought out support for Touch ID fingerprint verification and iPhone 6 resolutions along with a brand new Share extension to access cloud files in almost any iOS 8 app, today the search giant Google announced that it's now possible to send files to your Drive from other iPhone and iPad applications that have advertised their storage extension system-wide.

And in addition to the usual slew of bug fixes and performance improvements, the refreshed Drive client for iOS now makes it possible to view and share custom maps through the company's My Maps feature.

Rumor: Apple switching to Samsung-made Apple Watch chips, iPhone 6 battery and flash storage

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated September 26, 2016

The latest scuttlebutt fresh out of Korea has it that Apple is considering switching to Samsung-made components for the new iPhones and Apple Watch, including iPhone 6 batteries manufactured by Samsung SDI and NAND flash manufactured by Samsung's component making arm.

The story matches up nicely with a BusinessKorea report earlier this month which claimed Apple was considering changing its flash storage provider due to alleged issues with some 128GB iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units.

SanDisk unveils Lightning-enabled flash drive for iOS devices

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 19, 2018

SanDisk, an American maker of flash memory storage solutions, on Thursday announced an external flash drive that connects to iPhones and iPads via Apple's proprietary Lightning port. The iXpand Flash Drive along with an accompanying iOS app makes it easy to transfer media and documents between an iOS device and a computer through a USB port.

Available in 16 and 64-gigabyte varieties for $59.99 and $119.99, respectively, the accessory is now available through the SanDisk webstore. The $79.99 32-gigabyte edition will be offered exclusively at Best Buy starting Sunday, November 16.

Apple apparently changes flash storage tech in 128GB iPhone 6 and 6 Plus over alleged issues

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

Following unconfirmed reports that an unknown portion of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus units with 128 gigabytes of storage exhibit random boot looping and unexpected crashes, Apple has reportedly switched to using a different type of NAND flash technology.

The new iPhones use triple-level cell (TLC) NAND flash technology, but BusinessKorea reported Friday that the Cupertino firm will be switching to multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus going forward.