Amazon Releases Mac App to Access Cloud Drive From Finder

I wonder why everyone is so eager to copy Dropbox now, are they making serious money or something? Oh well, I'll stay with Derpbox for the time being, given that I have `earned' 11 gb of free space, and all my friends use this instead of the newcomers.

Tried installing this at work, but I can't connect. It's probably the blocks that our IT department have instituted, but if anyone else is having trouble setting this up, please post. I figure there's a small chance that it's just not up and running yet...but it's most likely my IT department.

After using DropBox for awhile myself I've accumulated 8GB of space, but I wonder other users opinions on the options currently available. Feedback?

MacRumors said:

...
Like Dropbox and Google Drive, Cloud Drive includes 5GB of free storage....

Click to expand...

Is this an error in the article or am I loosing out? Dropbox offers 2.5GB storage, no? ... before referrals.

dakwar said:

Is this an error in the article or am I loosing out? Dropbox offers 2.5GB storage, no? ... before referrals.

Click to expand...

Actually, I was offered 2GB of storage for free on Dropbox.

Looking forward to trying this out. I have 10 gigs free from DropBox. Amazon has better pricing though.

First Impression

Hello,

I'm new posting, but have been a reader of this forum for a while. I just downloaded the Amazon Cloud app. I also have Dropbox, and it looks like I will be keeping it for now. I like the way Dropbox places a folder in my Finder and Windows Explorer. Amazon's app does not seem to do that. It places an icon on the menu bar that I can drop dragged files to, but it just doesn't seen as integrated as Dropbox. I also don't like using my Amazon password to log into Amazon Cloud.

Well, now that Apple is getting rid of my iDisk, I hope they adopt Dropbox's approach to storage. When iDisk goes away, I won't be able to use iCloud to store anything but Apple data.

Anyway, I may not uninstall Amazon Cloud, but I won't be using it until Amazon makes it more user accessible.

Tony

Where's that one guy that creates an App that links all these cloud drives into one, so you can have 100GB of free storage with like 10 accounts from different companies.

ToeNhi said:

Hello,

I'm new posting, but have been a reader of this forum for a while. I just downloaded the Amazon Cloud app. I also have Dropbox, and it looks like I will be keeping it for now. I like the way Dropbox places a folder in my Finder and Windows Explorer. Amazon's app does not seem to do that. It places an icon on the menu bar that I can drop dragged files to, but it just doesn't seen as integrated as Dropbox. I also don't like using my Amazon password to log into Amazon Cloud.

Well, now that Apple is getting rid of my iDisk, I hope they adopt Dropbox's approach to storage. When iDisk goes away, I won't be able to use iCloud to store anything but Apple data.

Anyway, I may not uninstall Amazon Cloud, but I won't be using it until Amazon makes it more user accessible.

Tony

Click to expand...

I agree. It's not really integrated that well. It seems like a band-aid until they come up with something better. Wish it was good - I have 20 gigs free on there.

It's really useless until they release an iOS app.

ToeNhi said:

Well, now that Apple is getting rid of my iDisk, I hope they adopt Dropbox's approach to storage. When iDisk goes away, I won't be able to use iCloud to store anything but Apple data.

Click to expand...

That's not quite true. With Mountain Lion, the standard save and open windows will be able to save and open from iCloud. As long as developers are using the correct APIs, I don't think they have to do anything to get the feature automagically for their mountain lion users.

While we're bragging, I have 18.9GB of dropbox space.

Since no one else is sharing how it can be done, I'll keep my mouth shut too.

I'm finding my current mix of iCloud for documents/drafts, dropbox for general storage and droplr for sharing docs via links to be a nice mix. No need for another service.

reden said:

Where's that one guy that creates an App that links all these cloud drives into one, so you can have 100GB of free storage with like 10 accounts from different companies.

Click to expand...

That's EXACTLY what I was thinking! How does one decide which of these small free cloud drives to use? Or, do you set up free accounts on all of them, and use each one for different stuff? Well, that can get confusing very quickly. I'm always tempted to pay to upgrade my Dropbox to 50 GB or 100 GB, but I absolutely hate the idea of paying $100-$200 per year when I can get close to 50 GB of storage if I just combine a whole bunch of free cloud drive services.

If any of you out there are programmers looking to make a fast buck, here's your window of opportunity! Sell a $5 to $10 app which gives you a single folder on your hard drive which uses the free space from all of the cloud drive services out there, essentially consolidating all cloud drives into one! Shouldn't there be a way to do that?

I'm not saying this as fact or whatever, but if you want a free service and don't require the absolute tightest of security, you'll probably find that Dropbox is the best overall service for you. Yes, it doesn't give you the most space, but the sharing options are generally superior to the competition (aside from shared folders with other accounts taking up virtual space on all accounts), and the service itself, at least in my experience, has been the most stable. The app is far simpler and more stable as well.

I'll stress, I'm not saying this as fact, but just as an observation.

SMEStorage

reden said:

Where's that one guy that creates an App that links all these cloud drives into one, so you can have 100GB of free storage with like 10 accounts from different companies.

Click to expand...

Have a look at this: http://smestorage.com/wiki/maccloudtools/

dakwar said:

Is this an error in the article or am I loosing out? Dropbox offers 2.5GB storage, no? ... before referrals.

Click to expand...

I think it's 2GB to start, and then you can add more with referrals, as you mention.

As for Amazon Cloud Drive, I'm a bit disappointed, as it requires the use of Java before you can use it. Regardless of the recent controversy with Java and OS X, I wasn't really a big fan of it to begin with, and don't even have it installed. I'm not sure I'm keen on doing it now.

Amazon's storage is pretty cheap though; $20 for 20GB, per year.

AbSoluTc said:

I agree. It's not really integrated that well. It seems like a band-aid until they come up with something better. Wish it was good - I have 20 gigs free on there.

It's really useless until they release an iOS app.

Click to expand...

I too have 20 gigs from Amazon. I had forgotten about it.

But I saw the headline of this article with the word FINDER in it and ran and downloaded the app. Much to my surprise it was not what I was expecting.

To me being able to access "from finder" means that I can open finder and, well, access it.



Michael

gmccj said:

Have a look at this: http://smestorage.com/wiki/maccloudtools/

Click to expand...

Wow, that's a bit more complicated than I imagined! Thanks for the link! I guess it's true that you get what you pay for. Want to avoid the complexity? Then pay $200 per year for the 100 GB Dropbox account. But, if you're willing to dig into some less familiar software and manipulate your OS a little, then you might be able to work out a free solution.

gmccj, have you done this yet? Or, has anyone here done this? Is it simple? Does it really work? Any concerns about mucking up my Mac or OS beyond repair? I just don't want to be the first to try....

polaris20 said:

As for Amazon Cloud Drive, I'm a bit disappointed, as it requires the use of Java before you can use it.

Click to expand...

That would explain why it starts then exits with no warning on my Mac...I have Java disabled!

srxtr said:

While we're bragging, I have 18.9GB of dropbox space.

Since no one else is sharing how it can be done, I'll keep my mouth shut too.

Click to expand...

Did you do the camera promotion? I missed it while it was at the 5 GB level, but I did it at the 3 GB level. That boosted me from 18.9 GB up to 21.9 GB.

Dropbox is great, and I love it, but I wish that there was a way to sync files that seamlessly using my own storage, so that I could (for instance) use a huge drive at work (of my own) and still have the automatic syncing everywhere. I would love to hear suggestions!

Not thrilled

The right-click would not work, but I read you had to restart... ok. Did so, and now it moved all services to a separate "services" sub-menu from the right-click. They used to be at the bottom of the right-click menu in a list, now its another sub-menu. It should not have changed the right-click menu behavior, just added its function.

And, is it just me, or why the love of a web page to access files? I feel like we've gone backwards. I long for the days when I could mount an ftp or sftp server on the desktop. Cloud, old-style. Or, is there some way to access the amazon cloud server through the "connect to server" menu option in Finder?

I'm ok that it doesn't mirror a copy on your computer, like Dropbox - either way is ok, but it should be easier to access files.

I would really love for Apple to come out with a file system in the cloud.

DrMotownMac said:

Wow, that's a bit more complicated than I imagined! Thanks for the link! I guess it's true that you get what you pay for. Want to avoid the complexity? Then pay $200 per year for the 100 GB Dropbox account. But, if you're willing to dig into some less familiar software and manipulate your OS a little, then you might be able to work out a free solution.

gmccj, have you done this yet? Or, has anyone here done this? Is it simple? Does it really work? Any concerns about mucking up my Mac or OS beyond repair? I just don't want to be the first to try....

Click to expand...

I set it up on my iPad so that I can access Dropbox through iWork applications. It's a cheap alternative to DropDAV.

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gmccj said:

I set it up on my iPad so that I can access Dropbox through iWork applications. It's a cheap alternative to DropDAV.

Click to expand...

To be more precise, this is the part of SMEStorage I have used:
http://smestorage.com/?p=static&page=CloudDav

I think I'm going to have to try a number of these services (amazon's, google's, etc.). I think they'll need more OS integration to become more convenient, but I'd like to see what they offer. So far, dropbox is still my favourite cloud storage (iCloud doesn't count, I quite like it though, for the specific things it covers). But with this increased competition, I hope it compels dropbox to add more free storage! (hey, it probably help with adoption for them... will benefitting the users)