One of the cool things about Google Drive is that it allows users to collaborate on documents in real time. Now Google is bringing that same functionality to apps built with the Google Drive SDK.

Google announced today that developers can now build collaborative apps with the Google Drive SDK by using the Realtime API. Here’s a breakdown of what it does:

Developing for the Drive Realtime API is almost as simple as working with local objects. The API provides collaborative versions of familiar data objects such as maps, lists, strings, and JSON values and automatically synchronizes and stores modifications to these objects. Your application reads from and writes to these objects like any other local object. Change event handlers can be added to collaborative objects so that your app can react to changes from other collaborators.

If you want to learn more about the Realtime API, check out this video from Google on it:

Some developers already have access to the API, and have built some rather impressive live collaboration apps using it. One such app is Neutron Drive, a Google Drive app that allows users to edit code. Now multiple users can edit the same code simultaneously thanks to the Realtime API:

For more information on the Realtime API, check out Google’s documentation. There are other examples of the Realtime API in action over at Google Developers Blog as well.