Google Senior VP: offline Google Drive coming in five weeks

Google has been instrumental in pushing an always-connected model for its apps, but even it recognizes that sometimes staying online all the time isn’t possible. At D10, Google Senior Vice President of Chrome & Apps Sundar Pichai dropped a hint that users would have a fully offline version of Drive cloud storage shortly after Google I/O. “Google Drive offline is coming five weeks from today,” Pichai said offhandedly while talking about evolution in the company’s software. That gives us a launch date the week following I/O, which is held from June 27th to 29th.

Currently, Drive gives users the option to view files when they’re offline, but it’s not possible to edit them. This means that people with web-heavy operating systems, like the Chrome OS Pichai and others have been working so hard to develop, are stuck just looking at their Drive documents if they end up without a connection. Google has previously said more offline integration is coming to Chrome OS, but it’s good to hear that the service will be out so soon.