Introducing Google Drive... yes, really • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#401

Post by zmmmmm » Tue, Apr 24, 2012, 11:52 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #320

Cost is not an issue compared to convenience. From 1992 to about 4 years ago, I used mostly Linux (desktop and servers). Now I have gone down the dark path of living in APple's little walled garden (except for servers). I don't care if Google Drive is a lot cheaper than iCloud: with OS X Mountain Lion and an iPad, using Apple's iCloud storage is just more convenient. BTW, with OS X Mountain Lion it is strange that fo…

I agree that cost is not the main factor here, because the real battle is being fought in the free tier of all these services anyway.

However I'm not sure iCloud wins on convenience unless you live entirely inside an Apple ecosystem (and even if you do, do you want more lockin than you have already?).

For me convenience is about universality: which ever company gives me the best experience across every platform is the one that wins. iCloud fails because Apple has a fundamental conflict of interest in making your experience better on iOS vs everything else. Of course, they also can employ anticompetitive measures to ensure that all other services are worse on iOS so I guess it sort of evens out. Google has some similar issues but I think they have a much broader interest in making their service universal than Apple does. Mainly, I don't really trust Google to get the quality up to par ... so many of their services seem to get 95% of the way there and never get the final bugs ironed out because they are "good enough". But we'll see.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#402

Post by commononsense » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:00 AM UTC

Google does use S3 for some things.

Is it possible they are using S3 for this?

Perhaps Amazon gives Google a better deal per GB than they give Dropbox.

I've sometimes wondered how Dropbox is not a violation of the Amazon TOS that pertain to "resale" of AWS services. If anyone can explain that I would be grateful.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#403

Post by treelovinhippie » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

New launches are never available for Google Apps domains. Fark.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#404

Post by shek » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:04 AM UTC

edw519 wrote: post #100

What might go wrong? (This is a test of imagination, not confidence.) Google might finally unleash GDrive and steal a lot of Dropbox's thunder (especially if this takes place before launch.)... From Dropbox's 2007 YC Application, http://dl.dropbox.com/u/27532820/app.html I love reading old YC applications. I wonder if someday, they'll become the 21st century version of Harvard Business Review case studies.

Speaking of Harvard case studies, there is one already (with the YC application in the appendix): http://hbr.org/product/dropbox-it-just-works/an/811065-PDF-E...

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#405

Post by firefoxman1 » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:12 AM UTC

ok_craig wrote: post #307

antihero wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't they use Linux a lot internally, too? It's really awful that companies such as Box, Google etc are not supporting the Linux desktop, especially seeing as desktop linux is actually a really attractive option right now - better memory management than OSX and installable on pretty much any device, and Windows is pretty much a joke for non-.NET development or unless you game. Fuck, their Android platform is based o…

Not having a Drive client for Linux (yet) doesn't mean Google as a company does not support Linux at all. For example, Chrome is supported on Linux. We don't know - Drive for Linux may come further down the line. The reality is that a relatively small fraction of consumers use Linux at home or work. If I were releasing a new product, Linux wouldn't be one of my top priorities either.

I'm assuming it's in their best interest. If they plan on ChromeOS getting big, having GDrive built in will be a big plus.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#406

Post by andrewfelix » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:19 AM UTC

No one seems to be talking about the individual file size limits? I couldn't find if there were limit on individual file sizes. I have huge ISO files which have been an issue with other online storage services in the past.

Any ideas?

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#407

Post by Steko » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:23 AM UTC

andrewljohnson wrote: post #92

The pricing of this service is an eye-popper. I've avoided cloud backups for years because of Dropbox-like prices. At $256/TB/year, I can back up all my stuff, and never think twice. Game changed!

I guess we should be on the lookout for the Comcast billed me XYZ dollars to sync my GDrive stories in about 2-3 weeks.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#408

Post by stanmancan » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:24 AM UTC

deltaqueue wrote: post #308

stanmancan wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find one of the many "$100 of Adword credit free" coupons around, create an ad with your Dropbox referral link, sit back and watch your storage limit increase a couple times per hour.

I wouldn't recommend this unless you have specifically received one of these coupons at your email address. I used someone else's and my account was permanently suspended. Only after some negotiation was I able to make Google reverse the "permanent" suspension (a rarity, from what I have seen).

It wasn't hard to find one that I received myself. I've got coupons in magazines, hostgator, domain resellers... it shouldn't be too hard to come across one legitimately.

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#409

Post by i386 » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:28 AM UTC

Wait, their blog says its available today but all I get is a "Notify me when its ready" button when I visit http://drive.google.com/start ?

So its a soft launch for technology journalists then? What gives?

Re: Introducing Google Drive... yes, really

#410

Post by the_bear » Wed, Apr 25, 2012, 12:42 AM UTC

richardw wrote: post #342

Been waiting for this one for a while. But...doesn't feel right to me. It synced down my Google Docs files. Except it didn't. They're not, say, Excel files, which I assume the average user will expect. AFAICT they're shortcuts into Google Docs, which I didn't really need since I know where those are already, to a close-enough approximation. So now on my local drive I have two classes of spreadsheet. Real spreadsheets…

I'm also getting a "round peg/square hole" vibe. Google has been telling us for years that the folder metaphor is outdated and we should use search to stay organized. So when I set up desktop sync I ended up with a folder full of hundreds of unorganized documents. This isn't Google's fault (I kind of saw it coming) but it definitely supports your claim that Google Docs wasn't the right vehicle for desktop sync.

Also, what happens if I open an email attachment in Google Docs just so I can view it (I don't use MS Office)? It seems like that will instantly sync it to the top level of my GDrive folder on my computer, so I'll end up with a huge mess of files there. Same thing if I click a link to view a public Google Doc (I'm guessing).

There's a lot to like about GDrive, but forcing it into Google Docs makes it seem like a really messy and inelegant product.