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.

Re:It's just Google being Google

[Intrepid imaginaut]

I find this is a common corporate problem, eventually a product just peaks out and does what it's meant to do, then you're left with a bunch of people who helped get it there left with nothing to do. So they keep trying to improve it beyond where it was already perfect, in the process breaking it, maybe because they don't realise they're finished or maybe because they need a justification to stay in employment. So we end up with buggy bloated pieces of crap. Office is one such product, there's very little a business needs that can't be done perfectly well using Office 97.

For iOS so you don't need to go read.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could someone not have mentioned that it was for iOS so I could have ignored it. Haven't used that since soon after I gave up on Windows. I'm sure there are several other Slashdotters still stuck on that, so it's fine to post such a story, but please make it clear for the majority of us who won't care.

Re: For iOS so you don't need to go read.

[eggnet]

For android too.

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.

Re: As a non drive user, this makes sense.

[wizznilliam]

Thank you!.. I (and I'm sure Google) were thinking the same thing. Why everyone insists this is confusing is dumb. It was confusing as hell before. Changing to a paradigm that is well established by decades of MS Office is not confusing.

Re:As a non drive user, this makes sense.

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

It actually started the other way around: what was originally Google Docs became (part of) Google Drive a while back.

Re:As a non drive user, this makes sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's the way it used to be!

Google Docs existed before Google Drive. Shortly after Drive was introduced, they merged Docs into it. The existing domain docs.google.com redirected to drive.google.com after that point. I thought it was silly, as it seemed like Drive should have been the file manager (Windows Explorer) and Docs the office suite (OpenOffice).

I guess now they've concluded that too.

Re:As a non drive user, this makes sense.

[thsths]

Agreed. Even as a drive user, I always found it a bit weird that drive contained an editor for office files. A viewer - fine, that could be useful, but an editor? The division into a separate app makes a lot more sense. And I if there are hand over issues, I am sure they can be sorted out quickly.

Re:As a non drive user, this makes sense.

[baronvonj5561]

previously worked perfectly well via website

They aren't taking away web editing. They're taking editing out of the mobile app.

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

[Coward Anonymous]

De-coupling code is great. However, code refactoring should have no detrimental effects on end user experience. If it does, you are doing it wrong.

Your explanation implies a tail wagging the dog.

Re:My uninformed guess

[blackfeltfedora]

Can I get Apple to un-couple all the extra crap they jammed into iTunes so I can sync my iPod without my desktop griniding to a halt?

Re:My uninformed guess

[s7uar7]

My uninformed guess is that they realized that most people didn't know that the 'Google Drive' app was for document editing, and with the release of Office for iPad they wanted to make they had a visible competitor.

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.

Hmmm...

[technomom]

I think it makes sense if you consider that Microsoft and Google are starting to make peace with each other. Microsoft recently officially gave their blessing to using office.com on Chrome and ChromeOS. So, imagine now that maybe you'll be able to save and edit actual word docs in Drive using Office and that perhaps Microsoft will also be opening its own Skydrive (or whatever they're calling it now) up to other document types? I admit it's a stretch, but given the new focus on the cloud from Microsoft, it could happen. This also makes more sense from the "merging Android and Chrome" point of view as well as mobile tends to favor smaller, single purpose apps.

But people complained about changing it to Drive!

[slimjim8094]

It used to be Google Docs, right? Then they decided it was a cloud storage product and renamed the whole thing (including the editors) Drive. This confused a lot of people who didn't understand why you had to download Google Drive to edit a spreadsheet. So now they have seperate products and people are complaining about that too?

I give up. I mean I'm broadly sympathetic to change aversion, but this isn't even that. It's just breaking out functionality into more rational chunks, and people complaining about it.

Re:Does anyone even use Google's office suite?

[Orp]

I use it for "simple" stuff - for instance, it's very convenient to have a place to take notes at meetings (I do a lot of that with my job). Since I always have wifi where I work it's just a matter of opening up the Drive website and creating a new document. And then everything's in one place and it's easy to find stuff with Google's search, which works on document names and document contents.

I do create some "production quality" documents from within the Docs world, and export them to PDF or DOCX so I can share. But these documents are generally simple; the complex stuff I do in LaTeX. I really do not like Word with its seven thousand ways to frustrate me and the weird layout that I've never really gotten used to since they majorly changed it years ago. Libreoffice and Google's docs editor are nice and relatively simple and I find them easier to use. But I go back to Word when I have to which is frequently since "everyone" seems to use it.

It's convenient to have the ability to open attachments (from Gmail) in Drive/docs for quick viewing, but stuff created in Microsoft's Office doesn't always convert very well.

I fully realize what Google is doing by "sucking me in" to their world and having everything I do be stored on their servers. Ever since I bought a Chromebook Pixel and got the 1 TB of Drive space, I'm always finding ways to use it. I know they just want to harvest everything I do - so for the sensitive stuff I have an encrypted (ecryptfs) partition with Dropbox that I can mount on my Linux machines, and for wholesale archival storage of sensitive stuff I use PGP and stick it wherever. If Google Drive allowed the ability to mount the drive partition under Linux like Dropbox does, I would probably "drop the box" altogether.

Great name!

[glwtta]

Docs and Sheets definitely doesn't sound like a store you would find between Staples and Linens & Things.

Google stop f*ing up Google

[synthespian]

Dear Google --

You are your worst enemy.
Please, just stop.
First, a purported Microsoft Office-killer. Then, you lost space to Evernote. Oh. My. God. How can it be that small software houses beat you to the online document race?
You periodically either shoot yourself on the foot, or you pull features and leave your user/programmers feeling you're not reliable. Because you're not.
You have a serious lack of direction. Reconsider your ways.
Nothing you do outside search works. Or barely works.
And nobody uses Google+. Face it.
Please, just stop.