Drafts Update Adds Google Drive Actions, Background App Refresh And More

Drafts, the impressive URL scheme-powered text creation app for iOS, has received a useful update bringing Google Drive actions, support for Background App Refresh, and backups for existing user-created actions to both the iPhone and iPad apps.

You can download the updated Drafts for iPhone and Drafts for iPad applications now on the App Store, and each one’s available for $4.99. If you’re an avid Google Drive user, the update will be music to your ears: Google Drive actions (which are similar to the app’s Dropbox and Evernote actions) allow users to “create/replace/append/prepend to text files on your Google Drive,” according to developer Agile Tortoise.

Drafts 3.6 also brings support for iOS 7’s Background App Refresh. This allows the app to update its contents in the background, and in doing so notes created on different iOS devices should have already synced by the time users come around to launching Drafts on their iPhone or iPad. Plus, the app now automatically creates backups of users’ actions; this will occur every couple of days, and it can be enabled or disabled inside of Drafts’ preferences.

Finally, Agile Tortoise has added new clipboard actions to Drafts: these include “Append to Clipboard” and “Prepend to Clipboard.” On a more minor note, a handful of bug fixes have been made in the app, too.

Here’s a complete list of changes, as outlined in Drafts’ release notes:

Google Drive Actions: Create an unlimited number of custom Google Drive actions. Similar to Drafts’ existing Dropbox and Evernote actions, you can now create/replace/append/prepend to text files on your Google Drive! Visit agiletortoise.com for more complete docs and details.

Background App Refresh Support: Drafts sync now supports background refresh, to keep you current between the iPhone and iPad versions.

Auto-Backup of Actions: A new “Enable Auto-Backup” option is available in Settings > Action Backup and Restore. If enabled, Drafts will backup your actions and settings automatically every couple of days.

New Clipboard Actions: “Append to Clipboard” and “Prepend to Clipboard” actions. These are potentially handy in a number of workflows, but also useful for, say, merging several drafts by appending them to the clipboard, then creating a new draft from the clipboard.

As mentioned, you can download the recently updated Drafts for iPhone and Drafts for iPad for $4.99 apiece on the App Store. If you’re on the hunt for a smart text composition app that can link up with countless other iOS services, look no further.

For more information on Drafts, check out our previous coverage.