The new mobile cloud drive apps from Amazon are here, but, it seems, just barely. The company’s new Cloud Drive apps for iOS and Android bring the company one step closer to providing a complete mobile cloud storage solution.

The new apps let users view files and folders, preview documents and photos, play videos and music, and share files with other apps. The Cloud Drive release is meant as an all-purpose complement to the photo- and music-specific apps that Amazon already offers, and is aimed at the user who wants greater productivity.

Cloud Drive provides users with folder views of everything they have stored in Amazon’s cloud. Files can be viewed, shared or linked to -- and files like PDFs, images, spreadsheets and more are supported. In addition, stored music and videos can be streamed from Cloud Drive.

That way, users can delete photos from their phones, for example, and still see them via the Cloud Drive iOS or Android app, according to Amazon. Fire Phone users get free storage for all photos taken with their Fire Phones. Also, the Auto-Save feature keeps photos safe in a user’s Cloud Drive, even if the individual's phone or tablet is lost or damaged.

Inexpensive at $60 Annually

At $60 per year, Cloud Drive is the cheapest unlimited storage plan on the market, the company said. Amazon also offers a $12-per-year plan with unlimited photo storage and 5 GB of storage for all other files, while Amazon Prime subscribers get that benefit for free.

This sort of service from Amazon isn’t completely new. Amazon has been offering cloud storage, but it has only been accessible via desktop applications or through the Web, with no mobile application. Cloud Drive, available at Amazon’s Appstore, is the company’s response to online storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive.

Lean on Features

The trade-off for the cheap price is a paucity of features. On its desktop cloud storage system, Amazon still doesn’t offer a proper desktop sync app, so the only way to add files from computers is via a drag-and-drop interface, which can be frustrating for users who want to automatically make their documents or photo folders accessible through the cloud.

The new mobile apps are even more limited. For now users can upload photos using the sync feature in Amazon’s Photos app, but editing and syncing a document isn’t possible from phones or tablets. And there’s no way to move or edit files, or upload new ones via mobile devices. To upload content, users must rely on other Amazon applications such as Prime Music or Cloud Drive Photos.

Reportedly, Amazon aims to put more features in both apps in the future. So for now, the Cloud Drive applications function as a way for users to view files that they have stored in the cloud.