Google Gave All Android Users a Couple of Free Tools Today
- by Nick Cohen
- in Industry
- — Jul 31, 2020
With the launch of a new Google One app, those automatic phone backups are no longer behind the subscription paywall.
Google announced today that it will make some features of its Google One subscription-based service free for all Google users provided that Google One is available in the country of origin for a particular user. The data is not lost if users "break, lose, or upgrade" their phone. The auto back-up option comes quite handy, allowing users to backup data like photos, videos, and files to the cloud. The Google One app for the iPhone will be available in the coming days on the App Store. This feature lets you automatically backup device data, multimedia messages, and photos/videos. The new space management tool will let you find and remove emails with large attachments stored on your Google Drive. You'll be able to store photos, videos, contacts, and calendar events using the 15GB of free space provided by a Google account if you use Android, where as iOS users can back up photos, videos, contacts, and calendar events. It will give users "an easy way to see how you're using your storage, and free up space". The membership starts at $1.99 per month (roughly Rs. 140) for 100GB of data.
Google also stated its working to improve user experience with key smartphone partners including Samsung though it's not trying to force the maker out of offering its own app store and digital assistant. Furthermore, these updates only apply to consumer accounts and will not be available for G Suite business customers. It is likely that iPhone users are already on a paid Apple iCloud storage subscription tier, which includes seamless backup for the iPhone, as well as slick syncing of your files and folders across macOS, iOS, iPadOS and Windows 10 devices.