Why haven’t Microsoft or Apple built Dropbox-style sharing into their OS’s? Austin Carr is dead-on: why haven’t Microsoft or Apple built Dropbox-style sharing into their OS’s? Austin Carr via Co.Design “If it takes really long [to explain], then there’s probably a problem with the product,” [Dropbox CEO Drew] Houston says with a laugh. It’s that stripped-down approach to product design that’s turned Dropbox into a cloud powerhouse. The service, which offers arguably the simplest solution to accessing your files across PCs, tablets, and smartphones, has rocketed to well beyond 50 million users, and was said to be on track to hit $240 million in revenue last year. Today, the startup introduces its most convenient tool yet: the ability to share any files, right from your desktop, in just two clicks. Apple should take $1B of their $110B hoard, and buy Dropbox.
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Why haven’t Microsoft or Apple built Dropbox-style sharing into their OS’s?

Austin Carr is dead-on: why haven’t Microsoft or Apple built Dropbox-style sharing into their OS’s?

Austin Carr via Co.Design

“If it takes really long [to explain], then there’s probably a problem with the product,” [Dropbox CEO Drew] Houston says with a laugh.

It’s that stripped-down approach to product design that’s turned Dropbox into a cloud powerhouse. The service, which offers arguably the simplest solution to accessing your files across PCs, tablets, and smartphones, has rocketed to well beyond 50 million users, and was said to be on track to hit $240 million in revenue last year. Today, the startup introduces its most convenient tool yet: the ability to share any files, right from your desktop, in just two clicks.

Apple should take $1B of their $110B hoard, and buy Dropbox.

Sparrow’s Dropbox Integration: A Security Nightmare

I have been using Sparrow as my email client instead of the web-based Gmail interface. It is a productive experience, and with a few caveats — I wish they had an undo button, and a way to access all my mail aside from search — I’ve been happy.

Since I use DSropbox extensively I was interested to see that Sparrow supports a Dropbox interface. However, after exploring it I have turned off the option, and I think others will want to as well.

The bottom line: Sparrow’s integration with Dropbox rellies on use of the Dropbox public folder, which means that any attachments that are shared via the Dropbox integration are accessible to anyone. And this is a dangerous option for most business users, who’d like more security than that.

The biggest problem is that Sparrow’s team aren’t very explicit about what’s going on. If you read the two short descriptions they provide online, no mention is made of the use of the public Dropbox folder (see https://www.dropbox.com/help/179, and https://sparrowmail.tenderapp.com/kb/starting-with-sparrow/dropbox-in-sparrow).

I only discovered this by seeing the URL of a test attachment go by, and then by asking their support about this:

The alternative approach would be complex but useful: creating a unique Dropbox for every sender-recipient pair, and automatically inviting the recipient’s to share those folders. That was my hope, but that’s not the way they pursued it.

How would it work? Say I sent mail with an attachment to my pal, Gerd Leonhard, who (hypothetically) uses both Sparrow and Dropbox. Sparrow would create a folder called stowe-boyd-and-gerd-leonhard in my Dropbox, and share it with Gerd. The attachment would be placed there. And when he opened the mail on his side, in Sparrow, clicking on the link would open the file from the corresponding folder on his hard drive.

[Note: this grow more complicated when multiple recipients are involved. Perhaps the Dropbox folder would be the name of the initial subject line, or the sender could provide the name of a Dropbox folder they wanted to use.]

The various problems in this pretty picture arise when the recipient of my email doesn’t use both Sparrow and Dropbox. Sparrow would have to deal with all the messy use cases by creating URLs that could be resolved by them, yielding attachments as needed, after confirming that the requesters have access rights, but this would require retaining active access to the Dropbox. The simplest way to do this is to direct recipients to claim a preconfigured Dropbox account, possibly.

So maybe the Sparrow team will take another pass at this, once they think about it.

There is a wonderful simplicity to the idea of a light weight email client relying solely on Dropbox for attachments, so long as Sparrow’s team steps up and builds something more secure.

Google Close To Launching "Drive"

parislemon:

Amir Efrati reports that Google is close to launching a new product called “Drive”, a would-be Dropbox/Box/iCloud/etc competitor.

Before I left TechCrunch full time, I was hot on the trail of this project. Yes, Google had a Google Drive project that will killed off years ago, but a new one emerged last year and was being extensively used internally once again. 

Last I heard, this new Google Drive was said to be much better than the one that was killed off (which was killed off because many thought it “sucked”). It included a web component as well as Dropbox-like software piece that runs on your desktop. Mobile will be key as well, obviously. 

The most recent thing I heard supports what Efrati is reporting: that the prices are going to be more competitive than Dropbox.

It’s a commodity, so ultimately it should be built in to the operating system (on the device side) and approaching zero per month (on the server side). What is odd is that Amazon hasn’t launched a competitor.

Apple Tries To Acquire Dropbox for $800 Million, Dropbox Refuses | Chip Hazard

Chip Hazard via

A yet to be confirmed rumour indicates that Apple had offered to buy Dropbox for $800 million but the increasingly popular startup has declined the offer.

[…]

After having gained around $4 billion [actually $250-300M funding in a $4B valuation] in a round of funding, Dropbox’s revenue for this year is expected to be $100 million. A very handsome revenue for a company that is relatively nascent in the market. If this source is to be believed, Apple saw this opportunity to strike gold and offered Dropbox $800 million however the company has declined their offer because they too think that this is just the beginning for Dropbox.

Apple on the other hand recently announced Mac OS X Lion. One of the major features of OS X Lion is the AirDrop feature which makes transferring files between Macs quite a lot easier. It seems logical for Apple to want to acquire a company that particularly works and specializes in that domain. However it looks like Apple would either have to offer an amount that Dropbox can not refuse or simply takeover one of many Dropbox competitors in the market.

As an avid user of Dropbox, I can see Apple’s thinking. But on the other hand, if they offer competitive technology acquired elsewhere, closely integrated to their OS’s, couldn’t they take a large bite out of Dropbox? I guess I am still waiting to see this story confirmed.

Update: Bruna A, ann astute reader, caught the error in Dropbox funding, but that leads to the reasoning for Dropbox to say no: they are valued at $4B so why sell out for $800M?

Dropbox Etiquette - Stu Maschwitz

Stu Maschwitz via

I’m a huge fan of Dropbox. I use it every day both to make my work computer-agnostic and to collaborate with others. I wrote about how I use it to monitor After Effects renders.

But there’s a problem with Dropbox, one that will be familiar to anyone who’s ever had a roommate. Actually, anyone who’s had more than one roommate.

If you have one roommate, the house stays pretty clean, because there’s accountability. If I see dishes in the sink, I know who left them there. I am unlikely to leave dishes in the sink, because I know that my roommate will know it was me who did it.

Add a third roomy to the scenario and an important thing happens: Now I can’t be certain whose dishes those are in the sink. I might be tempted to leave dishes in the sink myself, because no one roommate will know with certainty that I’m the messy culprit. Instead of accountability, I now have just enough anonymity to be a slob with impunity.

It gets worse. As soon as one dish gets left, and it most certainly will, the next anonymous roommate will almost certainly add his dish to the mess. The sink is already full of untraceable dirty dishes, what’s one more?

I share Dropbox folders with a great many people, and the only ones that ever sprawl out of control are the ones I share with more than one other person. It’s become enough of an issue that I decided to write up my three rules for a tidy Dropbox.

Name your Shared Folder Something Non-Stupid

Within That Folder, Use a System

Do the Dishes

Go read the explanations of the rules. Most excellent advice.

Dropbox Integration with File Manager

virb:

Today we’re announcing a new addition to the file manager on Virb: Dropbox integration. You can now easily connect your Virb website to your Dropbox account and store your extra files there instead.

To give it a spin:

1. Go to Build
2. Launch the “Extra File Storage Manager”
3. Switch to the “Files in your Dropbox” tab
4. Click “Connect your Dropbox account”
5. Authorize access for the Virb application

Boom.

Virb will automatically create a directory called “Virb” in your Dropbox’s Public directory. Any files placed in this directory will be visible from within Virb – and the world.

(Source: virb)

Chatbox - Simple Collaboration Built On Dropbox

Chatbox is a very simple collaboration capability built on top of Dropbox.

Chatbox creates a chat stream inside of any Dropbox folder, allowing discussion with those you opt to share those folders with.

You download the app (Mac OS X only), and once it is running you have a new icon in the Mac toolbar:

This gives access to Dropbox shared folders (which might be worthwhile all by itself), as well as those which have been chatted up recently.

Once a Dropbox shared folder is selected, a Chatbox opens for that folder:

And there is control-click access to Chatbox through the finder, too. If you select your Dropbox folder and control click you’ll see ‘Chatbox’ as an option, and that leads to the top-most Chatbox, for the entire Dropbox folder, with all subordinate chat aggregated:

You can see that the nested folders’ chats are directly accessible by clicking on the chat icon, on the right, and the folders themselves can be opened by clicking on the folders’ names, to the left.

[Note: I don’t share my top level Dropbox folder with others, but I can still leave messages in unshared folders, for myself.]

Summary

Extremely simple, intuitive, and immediately essential add-on for Dropbox.

I am predicting that Dropbox will acquire and integrate this, and considerably more, from the team that dreamed this up (like Edwin Chen).

(pointer from Joel Falconer)

Cutting That Cord - John Gruber

John Gruber predicts Apple’s direction with iOS cord cutting: when we will not have to use a PC to manage our iOS devices.

After Apple’s iPad 2 introduction event last month, I ran into Josh Topolsky, and, of course, we talked about what we thought of it. Topolsky made an interesting observation: that the iPad 2 epitomized how Apple seems to be a generation ahead of its competitors on the device side — both hardware and software — but a generation behind on the cloud side.

I’ve been thinking about the iPad in this context ever since, and I think it’s a perfect synopsis of the state of iOS. There will be no tablet this year from any competitor that matches the iPad 2 in terms of elegance, battery life, or build quality. No competing OS will match iOS in terms of on-the-device user experience.

But most iPad competitors have little-to-no reliance on a connection to a desktop PC, the way an iPad does.

[…]

The announcement many people seem to be waiting for is for Apple to tell iOS users they no longer need iTunes on the Mac or Windows. The announcement I’d like to see is for iOS users to no longer need to pay for MobileMe to wirelessly sync calendars, contacts — and any other small bits of data from apps from the App Store.

iBooks does this. If you pause while reading a book on your iPad, then resume reading on your iPhone, it picks up on the same page in the book. Kindle and a bunch of other e-reading services do this too. The point isn’t that iBooks is unique or ahead of the curve in this regard. It’s that you don’t need MobileMe for iBooks. It’s all handled by the iTunes Store itself. You buy books on your device, you read them on your device, and your history, bookmarks and other metadata all get synced to your iTunes account in the cloud. And it works great. But a lot more apps should work like this. Should wireless Safari bookmark syncing cost $99 a year? Shouldn’t it be easy for iOS game developers to sync progress for the same game across multiple devices using the same iTunes account? App Store developers shouldn’t have to rely on another third party — Dropbox — for this sort of functionality.

And those third-party iOS developers that are depending upon Dropbox — there’s a veritable cottage industry of Dropbox text editors alone — have a far better syncing experience than Apple’s own creative apps. The iPad versions of the iWork suite and GarageBand are exquisite apps — easily some of the best-designed user experiences for creative software ever made. But the process of getting, say, a slide deck created in Keynote on your iPad open in Keynote on your iMac is downright antediluvian. Google Docs has none of the UI panache, but the syncing is invisible. You just open Google Docs, and there are your files. Doesn’t matter which machine you used to edit or create them, or which machine you’re using now, they’re all just there. That’s part of the overall experience.

That’s where Apple is behind.