Glad to hear about this. Dropbox is a central part of my iOS file system, so the more apps that can play nicely with it, the better.
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New Dropbox SDK Satisfies App Store Review Guidelines
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I really understood that part. If you read the whole post, I'm really trying to figure out what the part of the issues were at DropBoxes end. (I've since bolded and italicized the real part at the bottom).
Gary
great, now i can use dropbox on all my devices!
I’ve been using Dropbox on iOS for ages
Neither the Dropbox app itself nor any of the Dropbox-equipped apps I use were rejected over this small issue. (Although it’s possible certain updates were delayed over it, and I wouldn’t know.)Yes. iCloud and Dropbox solve very different problems for very different people. Both approaches have their uses. For tech pros like me, Dropbox does things iCloud, at present, has no equivalent answer for. (I’m particularly fond of Textastic + Dropbox for light programming on the go.)
At the same time, for most people (and even for me) iCloud also does things that Dropbox has no answer for! I know tons of people who would never mess with Dropbox—their eyes would glaze over at the very attempt to make them desire it! They don’t need it. But they use iCloud without a second thought.
Exactly!!! And depending on the filename of the presentation, you might not see it the first time through.
Gary
Ha, I completely forgot that iCloud is another Apple product which doesn't even support all Apple products. Even those which are not that old.
It's just nice to know what's going on, to be honest. It's annoying to use Photo Stream for example because often it seems to provide no indication that it's actually sending photos to my Mac, so I just have to sit there and hope it does something soon. Sometimes it won't even send the photos from my iPhone/iPad, and there's nothing I can do about that (other than just email the photos or something) because it's all automated. I totally appreciate that iCloud is meant to just work without the user having to worry about the technicalities but DropBox isn't difficult to use.
Also, I like just having one folder that's synced across multiple devices, rather than having the cloud functionality built into various applications.
"iCloud" by definition
Part of the problem with people is understanding what iCloud is.
DropBox can be said to be a "thumb drive that you don't need to drive" or "a folder you can access at home, even if you computer is off".
To get people to understand the "file" part of dropbox, you need to get them to ignore all the other parts (calendar, addresses, synced program settings, etc.) and just focus on the files (like presentations) but then make it clear they can't access those presentations with out owning that particular app on the devices they want to use. So if they used Keynote on a iOS device, they need to buy it on their laptop/desktop.
Oh, and if it's not a Mac (Snow Leopard or later?) they're screwed.
And even if they had someone else's Mac or iOS device, you'd have to unconfigure their iCloud to access your iCloud, right? (That's not going to happen).
(iWork.com goes away in July. But I don't see my Keynote presentations there.)
Gary
Part of the problem with people is understanding what iCloud is.
DropBox can be said to be a "thumb drive that you don't need to drive" or "a folder you can access at home, even if you computer is off".
To get people to understand the "file" part of dropbox, you need to get them to ignore all the other parts (calendar, addresses, synced program settings, etc.) and just focus on the files (like presentations) but then make it clear they can't access those presentations with out owning that particular app on the devices they want to use. So if they used Keynote on a iOS device, they need to buy it on their laptop/desktop.
Oh, and if it's not a Mac (Snow Leopard or later?) they're screwed.
And even if they had someone else's Mac or iOS device, you'd have to unconfigure their iCloud to access your iCloud, right? (That's not going to happen).
(iWork.com goes away in July. But I don't see my Keynote presentations there.)
Gary
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Works just fine on Android too.
I use it to sync pics from my phone (GS2), my wife's iPhone 4, my PC and my iMac.
4 different OSs, one product. Gotta love its simplicity.
This is an important point. The two are not mutually exclusive. I am a happy Dropbox user and if they had a cheaper 50GB plan I'd probably ante up.
iCloud is great when you need to sync information that doesn't come in document form for instance when I save a favorite in StockTouch I don't actually create a file that needs to be saved in a folder. iCloud is better for these types of applications. It's also better for packaged structures like an iPhoto database. Dropbox can do it but you run the risk of corruption if two people attempt to edit the same db.
iCloud has a pretty bright future. So does Dropbox if they can fend off newcomers.
I think it is not about how many platforms iCloud can support, it is not about if the product is open or close, it is about if its owner's mind is open or close, even dropbox only support one platform now, I am sure it must support more later.
BTW, I am not saying apple is doing wrong.
The problem with Apple's guidelines is that they are so incredibly hit-or-miss and arbitrary. Some apps get the greenlight on things that others are barred for.
I didn't know that process existed. I thought it would be a case of going to the back of the review queue. Thanks for enlightening me!
U sure it syncs android phone to and from photo stream? First time I'm hearing it
I don't know about you, but I care about folder structure because
1) my Mac (and my brain) uses folders to group files of different types together. It's a tried and true way to keep things organized.
2) iOS distinctly lacks any kind of usable file system.
Dropbox fills this need. It's a little clunky, but it definitely works -- and it basically provides me with a mobile version of (part of) my Mac's file system that I can carry around, confident my changes to it will be reflected everywhere. Also, as others have pointed out, you can substitute Android, Linux, Windows, Snow Leopard or any web browser into the sentences above and this whole thing still works.
I could see using iCloud to keep background stuff like contacts and calendars synced, but not for file. As it is now, iCloud is just an opaque extra layer over something that's working great for me. (I say opaque because, as someone else mentioned, there's ZERO feedback in iCloud as to what's syncing, whether it's been synced, what files are or aren't updated... ugh).
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I believe a computer's strength is in its ability to manage things that humans don't do quickly. I feel like managing folders is an arcane concept that came from physical file folders containing documents and it's a paradigm that exists today despite superior ways of managing content (metadata for tagging and more). Computers simply handle organization at a level of speed and efficiency that is orders of magnitude faster than we can. Every moment you spend fiddling with folder structure is a wasted moment of effort that could be applied elsewhere.
I believe any true sync technology should have very little user interaction beyond the initial setup. iCloud is not there yet but it's getting better by leaps and bounds. Sharing/Collaboration options would be nice as well. I like not having to worry about backing up my iOS apps. I like how iCloud handles conflicts and just makes a decision.
Folders and appending sync features to folders isn't magic. It's been done for ages at a LAN level and now across the WAN. Dropbox is nice in that it works and the concept is simple for the average person to grasp but architecturally it is a behind iCloud technological scope. I suspect we'll see rapid iteration of iCloud yet Dropbox or something like it will be the cross platform fail safe. Applecentric developers will leverage iCloud first and Drobox as a fall back.
Lion handles versions. I'd rather my OS handle versions rather than rely on a 3rd party resource that is limited to a single sync'd folder.
Who said anything about photo stream?
It syncs anything I put in Drop Box (which happens to have a Photos folder) between all my other devices.
If I take a pic on my GS2, it automatically puts them in the Photos folder.
They all have a Drop Box client, so all the files are shared between them.
Who said anything about photo stream?
It syncs anything I put in Drop Box (which happens to have a Photos folder) between all my other devices.
If I take a pic on my GS2, it automatically puts them in the Photos folder.
They all have a Drop Box client, so all the files are shared between them.
Oh nevermind i thought u said u are using icloud. Yes drobox i know works and pretty well too since I use it for a while
It wasn't. It's about a year old and Apple has been rejecting over it for a while now
I don't know how old you are or what you do for a living but in most cases where someone creates content over any length of time some sort of organization is mandatory. File folders aren't about 'sync'. Organization is necessary for the retrieval of information. In my professional life-time I worked on a multitude of IT projects, informational documents, presentations, etc. Many times I had more than one project going at a time. I also needed to retrieve documents/information from past projects. Without some sort or organization I would have spent hundreds (if not thousands) of hours just looking for the right document. File names just can't be long enough to convey the needed metadata.
Saying that file folders are 'arcane' tells me you 1) are not in a profession that demands a lot of document creation/information retrieval or, 2) are too young to have yet created thousands of documents.
It's rather like having one dresser drawer that you throw everything into, clothes, dishes, silverware, books, literally everything you own. You might be able to eventually find something but the time and effort put into the 'sifting' is a waste.
I don't mind the opaqueness, I think that is one of the virtues of iCloud. What iCloud does lack though is interoperability. With folders in folders coming in iOS 6 and ML for at least iCloud, if they would simply allow you to place multiple file types in those folders and let different apps all access those files, iCloud would achieve what's needed to be a genuine competitor to Dropbox. All that would be missing is some kind of sharing mechanism like they had in idisk and Dropbox has. They already implemented that kind of a feature in iPhoto, called Journals. They need to an analogous feature into their iWork suite. We don't need a rigorous file system, just two things would make iCloud an excellent competitor to all the alternatives:
#1: Interoperability for files and Apps.
#2: Sharing of files to external users.
I use Dropbox to keep a set of files that are available on all my devices, all the time. I've been creating folders and filing things using the Apple OS system for very a long time. It works great, it's completely manageable. And it's a huge step forward. No more copying stuff to disk or flash drive, or worrying whether i have any files or anything. I always have everything I need, no matter where I am, and no matter what device I'm using.
With it's app-centric focus, iCloud is useless to me, except for syncing address book and calendar etc.
Until Apple gets it's act together and gives iCloud the ability to serve that same purpose, I live on Dropbox.
With it's app-centric focus, iCloud is useless to me, except for syncing address book and calendar etc.
Until Apple gets it's act together and gives iCloud the ability to serve that same purpose, I live on Dropbox.