“Dropbox’s success is now at a critical moment,” Rachel Swaby reports for Wired. “Providing a way to give users access to everything they do on a computer from everywhere has become the brass ring for digital services. And Dropbox is the one to beat. After years of remaining largely below the radar of the world’s biggest computing companies, Dropbox is now faced with a host of very prominent competitors. The most immediate, of course, is Apple, whose iCloud service launched in October.”
“iCloud hits Dropbox hard on the simplicity and ease of use fronts because Apple has been working in this space from the beginning,” Swaby reports. “iCloud may be cross platform averse, but its automatic syncing slices seconds from Dropbox’s drag-and-drop approach…. You get the feeling that [Dropbox is] ramping up quickly in preparation for a nasty fight. And with iCloud, Apple’s thrown the first major punch. Sure, Apple has stumbled in the space before, but now with a few more years of development under its belt, they’re in a good position to snatch the ‘it just works’ catch phrase right from the Dropbox founders’ mouths.
Read more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Thurrott reviews Apple iCloud: ‘Best consumer-oriented cloud computing service I’ve ever seen’ – November 28, 2011
Analyst: iCloud biggest thing for Apple since iTunes Store introduction – November 8, 2011
Apple grants iCloud access to Windows PC sufferers as part of iOS 5 upgrade – October 31, 2011
Why iCloud will be one of the most important products for Steve Jobs’ legacy – October 28, 2011
Apple’s huge monetary commitment to iCloud creates barrier of entry for would-be rivals – October 14, 2011
WSJ reviews Apple iCloud: Worked without a hitch, plus it’s free – October 12, 2011
DropBox: You could have joined them. Now you have to beat them…
http://www.idownloadblog.com/2011/10/18/apple-steve-jobs-wanted-dropbox/
Not necessarily. They can compete very handily and as long as they maintain their ease-of-use functionality they’ll be successful. Especially to those who go out of their way to avoid Apple.
As Steve Jobs said, Dropbox is a feature; not a product.
They should have taken the deal….
For me, Dropbox is all about collaboration. Awesome stuff. For my kids at school, Dropbox is about syncing their stuff between home and school and fellow students. iCloud is about a few photos and the odd file on devices registered as mine.
Exactly this. Two different uses for me.
ICloud only works with OS X Lion. But for Windows, iCloud even supports crufty old XP.
Some of us have enough PPC apps that have not been updated so we need Rosetta and Snow Leopard.
Would it have hurt Apple to support iCloud on Snow Leopard and maybe even Leopard? I’ve been a Mac user since ’84 and more and more Apple seems to be pushing the new, to hell with the old.
Agreed, they should have added support for 10.6 at a minimum. 10.7 is still a bag of hurt.
Though I have a DropBox account I prefer my Pogoplug device and Evernote over DropBox. Yes, I have iCloud as well.
iCloud is A LOT more than that. Seamless backup. Contacts, calendars, bookmarks and notes in sync. Lost device tracking. Push email. And free.
Dropbox can carve a nice niche with their cross-platform support.
Thats what keeps me off icloud at this point. I use more than just apple hardware and software.
iCloud also works with Windows.
http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/pc.html
And of course the browser based parts of it are accessible cross platform as well.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but iCloud doesn’t provide a way to browse the file system. Therefore, I can’t just put a movie file in iCloud and then have it on another computer. I can do that with Dropbox.
My point is that Dropbox is more flexible. iCloud is great for what it does, but what it does is very limited right now.
I think a movie file is definitely NOT the argument in favour of Dropbox, since you can share movies in iCloud among your iDevices the same way you share your pictures.
Better example would have probably been a Photoshop file…
I’m no longer required to do Windows, not at work or anywhere else.
I must be missing something. I have Dropbox and iCloud. Dropbox has a folder on my desktop (iMac, MacBook Air, MacBook Pro). I drop a document (any file format) in the folder and it’s available on any of the devices soon thereafter. And it retains the original format.
On my iOS devices, I used iWork and the file automatically populates all my devices. However, on my Mac OS X machines, I have to open a browser and drop the files in. Thereafter, once I open the documents in an iOS device, the format changes. And how do I get the file back to my desktop once it’s in iCloud? Go back to the browser and log on again.
I love my Apple products. But it’s ridiculous to claim that iCloud beats Dropbox on the “ease of use front.” Not yet.
A big “INDEED!”. The iWork situation was a big disappointment for me when iCloud rolled out. I want those files on my iMac, Air and iPhone. iWork is a substantial part of my business work.
I use Dropbox for my 1Password synch. Everything updates on the fly across 2 iPads, Desktop and Laptop without fanfare.
Amazing iWork is still at v 09 and lacks functional synching. While I appreciate Apple directed resources towards IOS over the last 2 years, we’re still talking about a Corp with mega-billions in Cash. How hard can it be to update an iWork suite???
my impression of iWork has always been that Apple never really took it seriously. I mean, keynote is like this ugly stepchild that only gets new clothes when it starts to stink. It’s 2011, and the app, used to layout ideas and presentations, still doesn’t feature layers, proper selection toolset, zoom that doesn’t work like it’s been designed by a retard, user defineable shortcuts, just to mention a few.
Agreed — iCloud is awful at file sharing. It’s a giant hole and question mark in the system. Dropbox is almost flawless – although Sugarsync is also impressive. Sync any folder including desktop between macs — great!
What’s wrong with Dropbox using Apple’s APIs to make a useful program that adds functionality. Isn’t that Apple’s intent? Afterall, Apple is ahardware company that succeeds because of tje superbe user experience.
These are two vastly different products with little in common except for the clod part of their services.
Privacy? What about that? If you delete your file will it truly be deleted? I still don’t get why Apple got rid of idisk… I use that thing all the time… 🙁
The main reason I haven’t updated from Mobile Me is that I would need to manage two programs to replace its functionality: Dropbox for iDisk and iCloud for contacts and other syncing. Apple should have just improved MobileMe without dropping core functionality. Maybe, someday, iCloud will be better–but it isn’t better today, at least not for my needs.
Come on! iCloud isn’t near the quality of DropBox, and it is sad to have to say that. For docs at least, iCloud is way more primitive, requiring too much manual intervention, whereas DropBox just happens. I was shocked to realize this once iCloud launched, and can only hope that soon Apple wakes up and improves the quality of iCloud.
sp you are exactly right. iCloud has very primitive document syncing features compared to Dropbox (or even iDisk). How can anyone even compare the two? iCloud for document syncing is a joke at this point in development.
One of the things I don’t like about DropBox is the geeky way that uses the folders as the organizational metaphor.
Having said that, when you move an item from one folder to another, you do have a lot better mental picture of what is happening, which is an idea that Apple seems to be abandoning in the iOS-like metaphor they are heading toward in Lion.
I am concerned about reports of serious Dropbox securityissues.