Google has updated its Google Drive service, which we saw land the other day with a new Drag & Drop implementation for easier file management. While this was the most visible change, it certainly wasn’t the only one. It seems Google has been busy behind the scenes.
Android Police have been digging deeper into the Android APK that was released to accompany the new Drive update, and what they’ve found is pretty cool. First, Photos continues its split away from Google+ — Google already considers that the products are separate, and no longer the same, and it looks like the Photos part of the equation will find a new home amongst Google Drive. This makes good sense; it’s all to do with online storage of your files, media, and now images. Makes sense to have these things in one place, instead of having files and documents in Drive, and Photos nominally a part of Google+.
Coming soon, the automatic photo backup feature of Google+ / Photos will be split off entirely and into Google Drive, leaving Google+ as just a bit of a social network that never really took off the way it perhaps should’ve.
The next surprise inclusion is the moves to enable Chromecast support for streaming audio and video straight from your Google Drive storage. Yes, you’ve been able to Chromecast Slides for a while now, but these latest moves will free up the rest of your streamable content as well.
Of course, as with any APK teardown, this is mostly speculation, but if the shoe fits … well, it just might be. Let’s see what the next month or so brings.
