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Google Drive Doesn’t Work with iPad, iPhone

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Google latest product doesn’t yet work with the iPhone or iPad, limiting its usefulness for those that use Apple’s devices, but rely on Google’s services.

You can do some things via Safari on iPad/iPhone, but if you hit play on video files you’ll get an alert to update Adobe Flash, which can’t run on iOS devices or a broken video file.

This is a problem since the iPad and iPhone are the best-selling mobile devices in the world, with Apple selling a combined 46 million of its mobile devices in the first three months of the year.

Google Drive iPhone iPad - Flash

Google Drive for IPad Fails

Google promises that Google Drive for the iPhone and iPad is on the way, and should arrive within the next few weeks to a month, but until then most users will use Google Drive through the web browser on the iPhone and iPad, and run into difficulties.

To use Google Drive on the iPhone and iPad, point Safari to drive.google.com and log in.

Once you’re logged into Google Drive you can access Google Docs and the various files you have uploaded to Google Drive from the Mac or PC uploader app.

Unfortunately the web page is not reliable. The mobile version of Google Drive would load one in five tries and any attempts to reload would fail. I could click over to the desktop version and see all the files I have uploaded, but then video files tried to play using Flash.

Google Drive iPhone iPad - webpage fail

The mobile version of Google Drive fails on the iPhone.

While in Mobile mode I was able to play a video file once on my iPhone, but the iPad would never play video files from Google Drive.

Google Drive on the iPhone will provide access to Google Docs files, but the editing process is as tedious as ever. Image files load quickly as well.

Google Drive iPhone iPad - video fail

Don't try to play video from Google Drive on the iPad.

PDF files fall flat. Google Drive opens PDF files in a preview pane that makes it easy to read the contents, but provides no means of downloading the file to the iPhone or iPad to use in apps like iBooks or SignMyPad.

Stay tuned while we investigate a better way to use Google Docs on the iPhone and iPad.

Does Google Drive perform any better on the iPhone and iPad any better for you?

5 Comments

5 Comments

  1. Frederic Henry

    04/27/2012 at 4:11 am

    GoDocs works great on Iphone/iPad to access Google Drive

  2. Ercldh

    04/27/2012 at 1:14 pm

    Josh, the fact that flash files dont play on an ipad is hardly news, is it? And that it is difficult to download ANYTHING on to an IPad is also a well known fact, that has not much to do with google or any of its products.

    • Ksbuchanan

      04/29/2012 at 8:16 pm

      I have to free completely with this. Ad is great, but it ha numerous issues with compatibility. I have an ipad2, and I love it. Websites that don’t work with it, I just ignore.

      As for google drive, I have about 50GB of files, pics, music, etc…and they will not play or open well on my iPad. However, I use Splashtop to connect to my PC desktop computer, and I can stream the music, and edit files…which isn’t the best experience, but in a pinch, it does work.

  3. Stephen Digby

    10/07/2012 at 1:30 pm

    Still a problem. Folder contents display (and even document prieview images) but the docs nd pdf’s just load a blank screen. JPG’s are fine (so it is not a security restriction).
    Google chrome ipad/ iphone browser app does nto have a problem so it must be a purely safari compatability issue.
    Perhaps Google is driving us towards the chrome browser ???

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