Unsurprisingly, the Drive web interface is Docs with a few tweaks

Feb 17, 2012 09:21 GMT  ·  By

Google Drive is coming, soon apparently, though that could still mean several months. The key points are known and have been known for a while, but a possible screenshot of Google Drive's web interface provides further evidence.

Google Drive is Google Docs evolved, it's not a completely new product, but it will come with a few big new features, marking a new focus for Google Docs as a file depository rather than a document manager.

The screenshot revealed by Geekwire shows Google Docs transformed into Google Drive. There's a new name, of course, Drive and "My Collections" is called "My Drive" but those are pretty much the only changes, apart from a crucial one, there's a link titled "Install Google Drive."

Google Drive will have a local component, a piece of software that will sit on your computer and will probably sync local files automatically and in the background, very similar to Dropbox.

It will have to do at least that if it plans to compete with Dropbox and will probably need to do more to convince people to switch.

That said, the market for this type of software and service is huge and there's plenty of room for both Dropbox, Google Drive and all the rest, even if Dropbox has more than 50 million users.

Along with the screenshot, which allegedly comes from a user that has had Drive activated for his account, the Google Drive logo has surfaced as well.

The image surfaced some time ago and it seems that it depicts the logo, or at least the favicon, of the upcoming service.

What is known for sure is that Google Drive is coming, it will be integrated into Google Docs, or rather Google Docs will evolve into Drive, and it will have a desktop app for file syncing. What is very likely is that there will be mobile apps, perhaps the Docs app will be upgraded, and that it will be a part of Chrome OS.

The big unknowns, for now, are its launch date, which may be anything from a few weeks to a Google I/O launch in the summer, and how much free storage space will be offered, but also how much the paid tiers will cost.

Moreover, there's the possibility that Google has more features planned for Google Drive than what a standard file sync and cloud storage solution would need, deep Android integration, integration with Chrome, similar to Cloud Print, and so on.

Photo Gallery (2 Images)

The supposed Google Drive logo
The alleged Google Drive web interface
Open gallery