The biggest drawback to iCloud Drive on iOS is the lack of a native file explorer for it. Services such as Dropbox, Box, or Google Drive have native applications to view their respective cloud files. So why doesn’t Apple offer a first-party iCloud Drive app? Nobody’s sure.
Though it would’ve been logical too, Apple might still be working on it for a future version of iOS. In any case, there isn’t an app that is solely built with iCloud Drive in mind. Well, if you’re looking for that sort of app, look no further, because Cloud Drive Explorer is here to satisfy your needs.
With Cloud Drive Explorer, you’re able to grasp a somewhat native iCloud Drive experience. If you’re looking for a “Finder” for iCloud Drive, that’s not going to happen. What it does offer, though, is a file ‘reader’ for iCloud Drive. It supports most file formats for music, video, photos, iWork, MS Office, and even basic formats like txt. Though don’t expect to edit, modify, or change the files. It’s simply a reader.
Maybe the first-party app wasn’t released because of the App Store limitations. It sounds a bit ridiculous but Apple has to follow their own rules as well. Though the service secretly has an extension to function in apps that implement the iCloud Drive viewer.
But if you want an app that can simply read meta data, and have read-only permissions to the service, Cloud Drive Explorer will do the trick. The app is free on the App Store and is compatible with iPhones and iPads running iOS 8 or higher.
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