Google Shifts Editing From Drive to Docs and Sheets In 'Confusing' Switch

GottaBeMobile offers a better explanation than many other reports of a recent Google upgrade (some users would say more of a lateral move) that makes offline document creation and editing a first-class option for users of Google's office apps, but removes editing capabilities from Google Drive per se. Instead of creating or editing documents directly through Drive, users will instead be able to do this (including offline) with a dedicated app called Docs and Sheets. The article explains a few ways in which the new configuration is confusing, including this one: "Splitting out the editing functionality from Google Drive into the new Apps certainly seems odd given that fundamentally there are no new or different editing features offered in the new Google Docs and Google Sheets standalone Apps. Some users won’t appreciate having to download the new stand alone Apps to replace previous functionality, especially limited functionality."

Comments

It's just Google being Google

[scottbomb]

Google has a history of constantly tweaking their applications to the point of breaking them and/or making them less useful. There is a reason why the old saying, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" exists. The only thing they seem to get right is search. Yeah, Maps and Earth work well, unless your using Linux or an Android smartphone. Maybe they should focus on fixing bugs instead of creating new ones.

Re:It's just Google being Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Since we're talking about Google apps, turn the screw until you hear a crack, then turn ten or twelve more times.

Re:It's just Google being Google

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

Yeah, Maps and Earth work well

Maps used to work well. The recent new version is, unfortunately, a textbook example of the tweaking-to-the-point-of-breaking that you mentioned.

As a non drive user, this makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't really use these apps, bit why would something called Google drive be the thing I use to edit Google docs? Small programs that do one thing well and integrate with others makes a heck of a lot more sense then what appears to have been a poorly named monolith.

Seems to make sense to me

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't use these apps, but why would I use some called Google Drive to edit Google Docs? That doesn't really make much sense to me. Naming confusion aside, if I want to edit Docs, I shouldn't need to install Drive, I should just be able to install a Docs app. Apps should do one thing well, not many things poorly.

My uninformed guess

[QilessQi]

It sounds like the code base has grown to the point that they realized it would make sense to separate the code for managing a collection of online files from the code for editing a particular file. So: Drive is the file manager, Docs is for word processing documents, and Sheets is for spreadsheets.

That sounds pretty reasonable, especially from a project-management perspective. De-coupling the code will probably allow the different teams to release updates as needed without having to be in perfect synch with each other's schedules. That is, they can submit a patch to Docs even if Sheets is in the middle of a major refactoring.

Re:My uninformed guess

[c]

So: Drive is the file manager, Docs is for word processing documents, and Sheets is for spreadsheets.

It makes even more sense to decouple them when you consider another (now Google) product, Quickoffice.

DropBox

[Pascal Sartoretti]

This is why I love the DropBox concept : it is just a local folder on my machine and I can use any application I want to edit the files stored in there.

And if one day DropBox becomes too evil or too expensive, I can transparently switch to an other solution to sync my documents without changing the way I edit them.