Alleged Screenshot Of Google Drive Surfaces

A reader of Geekwire has sent in what he claims is a shot of Google Drive, which apparently has activated early for him. It’s entirely possible that the shot is fake — Google’s stark interface isn’t exactly difficult to recreate. There are no obvious red flags we can see, though, and it jibes with the presumably legit screen seen briefly at a Google-sponsored event back in 2011.

The shot shows the web interface, which has a list view of files and a few buttons for management. The most interesting bit would be there in the lower left-hand corner, “Install Google Drive” — there will be client-side integration on the OS level, in all likelihood an enhanced folder a la Dropbox, or possibly a small syncing client like that used for Google Music.

Take a look:

There are two big red buttons, same as Google Docs. No drive space indicator, but that would probably be at the bottom of the screen. And it’s curious that some of the PDF files have Adobe icons, and some have blue document icons. Suspicious, but there are plenty of potential explanations. Missing too are the other buttons seen earlier, but in that shot a file was selected, which would bring up the share and trash options.

The Google Drive product is very clearly aimed at Dropbox — not that this is a surprise, but this screenshot, if real, hammers that point home. In fact, it appears to copy their product more or less exactly. Google will set it apart with a higher default storage capacity, true, but it’s definitely a classic Google replacement strategy.

If this little premature rollout is legit, we’ll probably see an official announcement in the next couple weeks. If it’s fake, well, we still expect an announcement soon, and it’ll probably look a lot like this.