Google Drive dev tools promise better and more powerful apps (video)

If you're an Android user, there's little doubt that you're familiar with Google Drive, Mountain View's preferred cloud storage service that competes with the Dropboxes, SkyDrives and iClouds of the world. Of course, Drive can also be used by developers to build better apps, and today Google has rolled out a new Drive Android API to make devs' jobs even easier -- and provide us all with better app experiences. The main attraction is a feature called transparent offline syncing, which, for users, means that cloud storage is treated the same way as local storage.

So, you get the benefits of massive amounts of storage provided by GDrive, without needing to spend on more storage in your phone. And, should you not have a good enough connection to the cloud, the API automatically shifts to storing your data locally until it has good enough reception to send it to the servers. Because of this, developers can design more capable, powerful and generally better app user experiences for less endowed (read: cheaper) and flagship handsets alike. Speaking of which, Google says these features will work on 98 percent of all Androids, so most of us will reap their benefits.

Additionally, the API integrates tightly with Google Play Services, which reduces apps' download size (making for faster downloads) and means fewer updates are needed down the road. Well, developers, what are you waiting for? Watch the video above for a full description of the API's capabilities and get to making us all better apps!