Apple Should Acquire Dropbox | Hacker News Reader

Apple Should Acquire Dropbox

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32 pointsmrshoe46 comments

"bonus points if Apple continues to support the Dropbox client on other operating systems"

Bonus points? BONUS POINTS!?!

I'm sorry, but the author comes across as a selfish jerk. He sees a product that is shared by everyone, and speculates how it might make HIS life better, with no regard for everyone else. The aura of "just-doesn't-get-it" is made even worse by the fact that one of Dropbox's GOALS (as I understood it) is cross-platform support.

Same for iDisk. That's why Apple implemented it with WebDAV.

Anyone can access iDisk from any OS using an open standard client, and iDisk URLs can be replaced with open standard storage URLs, no proprietary platform or API needed.

There are certainly reasons why Apple shouldn't buy Dropbox, but I think there are more reasons why it should happen:

1) It DOES work across all OS's. iTunes works really well on Windows and OSX. Apple would actually want something that can easily be used by all customers. Imagine how small the iPod/iTunes/iPhone base would be if it were just an Apple only product.

2) Their mobile API. This would be a great offering to iPhone devs. By using the Mobile API of dropbox, the filesystem needs for iPhone/iPad apps gets solved.

3) The Dropbox team clearly knows how to build a great cloud product. Apple just doesn't have that in their DNA from what MobileMe has shown.

4) I think Apple could offer a price that makes sense to the Dropbox team and investors like Sequoia and YC.

5) I'm assuming Apple would offer the service for free. Maybe not the 50gb service, but certainly > 2gb. Dropbox would now be used by tens of millions of people within the next 12 months. Could you imagine how much better people's lives will be?

6) I don't know how Apple is post acquisition as they don't do many of them. My guess is, that the team could still flourish/enjoy themselves there.

iTunes works really well on Windows

A large number of people would beg to differ with you.

Indeed. I'm not exaggerating when I say iTunes is literally one of the worst applications I've ever used. Sluggish, constantly (and needlessly) updating, horribly out of place UI, locks up when adding tracks or syncing, eats memory like nobody's business, unnecessary cruft added in, lack of FLAC support (last I checked), no skinning or addon system, etc, etc. I honestly just meant to write one or two things there, but the various annoyances just kept springing to mind. I used it for years due to having an iPod and not putting enough effort in to switch, but once I finally did it was liberating.

What did you switch to?

I tried Songbird, but that was just too buggy to consider using seriously. Nice idea, but it was just as bad as iTunes in my experience.

I used Amarok before the upgrade, and liked that pretty well for a while. Easy keyboard shortcuts are great.

So far, I've been sticking with Foobar because it has a nice amount of customization built in, and components for everything else. Unfortunately, I haven't found a good one to sync to my phone (not that iTunes offered that of course...), so I'm trying doubleTwist for that.

However, I'm not really set as to what I'm using, and I'm still looking around to see if there's anything that catches my eye. Must haves are good library management for about 8000 or so files, keyboard shortcuts, an easy search method, and some form of filter pane view (iTunes did do those last two right at least). Any recommendations?

Edit: I should add that I'd really like to replace doubleTwist. It takes forever to start itself up, and it doesn't even automatically scan my music folder for new media. However, I really could use some form of automatic management for my Droid, since it's my only music player other than my computer at the moment.

I too am considering Foobar2k. I'm so sick of itunes I might just try rockbox on my mini and nano. Maybe then I could use rsync to sync the device.

I used to complain about iTunes on Windows, but you just need a modern machine. Now that I have an new i7-920 overclocked to 4GHz, with 12 GB of ram, iTunes responds usually under a second, as long as I'm not running anything else of course.

Cool spec'd rig ... and you paid how much so that iTunes can run properly?

For what it's worth I think iTunes on Windows is pretty good if you want all the features it offers. I often see people compare iTunes to much smaller feature-lean applications that suits their needs better. That's not a fantastic argument if you put both applications in front of someone who wants to rip CDs, buy music, download podcasts, arrange their iPhone home screens, manage applications, sync files, etc. VLC or Foobar would be mostly useless to those people (at least without some serious customizations) It really depends what features an individual is looking for.

A very vocal but small percentage of users would beg to differ, and that percentage seems to be vastly overrepresented online. Most of the less demanding PC users I know seem to like it, and that's what matters for a big company like Apple. It gets most of the big things mostly right.

You're looking at it the wrong way. The number of people not complaining is not relevant - they simply have no opinion. What must be compared is the number of people who are complaining about it vs. the number of people who are applauding it.

And don't give me that crap about how the complainers shout louder than the applauders, because on almost every tech website, including this one, the Apple fanboys are louder than the Apple haters.

It absolutely is relevant - if Apple cares about usage, and 90% of the market doesn't care either way and uses iTunes because it just happens to be the most convenient option since it integrates with their iPod, that's GREAT for Apple. It will encourage that 90% to buy further iPods when it's time to upgrade, and that's ultimately one of the main purposes of iTunes.

I'm looking at it from the angle of their wanting to make money.

To be fair, it's not much better on a Mac

"iTunes works really well on Windows and OSX"? I've run it on windows, and I think it blows really hard. I can't believe it got released, it's so bad. Maybe the UI makes sense to people coming from OSX, but it certainly breaks a bunch of windows UI standards.

Not just windows standards, computing standards in general. It seems impossible to find where you have to go to run an action, whereas in almost any other app I've used, the developer puts it where it is contextually relevant. iTunes on windows, I swear, they deliberately put things in the wrong place, the thinking being that this will turn people off windows?

> iTunes works really on Windows...

Please don't troll here, help keep the level of discussion high.

>Their mobile API. This would be a great offering to iPhone devs.

It would, but I would also expect to see Dropbox for Android decline quickly.

It would be a great thing for Apple to acquire Dropbox, but it would also be a horrendous outcome for all non-Apple users.

No they should not.

Acquisition is on pace to be the thing of the year, and while I'm not saying getting bought out by a large company like Apple is a bad thing, I think continuing to strike out on you own while you've got a good thing running does you more favors.

Apple should buy Dropbox, but Dropbox shouldn't sell. I'm on Dropbox's side. :)

Getting bought out could go either way for Dropbox's users. Getting bought out by Apple, however, would not be a good thing for us. The key feature that most people use Dropbox for is syncing across all their computers, and I simply don't see an Apple-owned brand doing anything remotely like that.

MobileMe does exactly that.

Well, if your world-view contains only OSX and Windows.

> Well, if your world-view contains only OSX and Windows.

OSX and Windows and any OS that does WebDAV.

iDisk is WebDAV. It's a ... wait for it ... "open standard".

Even on Mac if you don't like the iDisk client, use any other WebDAV client you like.

I see all the iDisk hate in these threads and I wonder about people paying lip service to open standards on the one hand, while pushing proprietary solutions and dissing open standards on the other.

I love Ubuntu personally and I think it's awesome that Dropbox works for it. Objectively speaking now, it's just irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

I love Ubuntu too, and I think it's awesome that iDisk works for it. It's cool seeing that awesomeness was built into iDisk, since Apple is using open standards for their online storage.

The Dropbox team has a lot more creativity left as far as the product is concerned, I'd hate to see them stripped from that to focus solely on Apple's goals.

On the same token, I've argued that Apple should buy Dropbox for two reasons:

1) iDisk is embarrassingly bad.

2) The iPhone/iPad works on both Windows and OSX; universal file portability is important.

Regardless, I'll continue paying for premium Dropbox service if they remain independent. And I think I speak for a lot of people.

What do you think is wrong with iDisk? I'm just curious because I've had pretty good experiences with it over the last few years. The one issue I run into are the slow sync times. I have to manually press the sync button more often than I'd like to moving between machines. Interestingly I don't see this problem on the iPhone iDisk app which makes me think it's unique to the way OSX handles iDisk shares. (I recently began using iDisk Sync with local caching which has so far provided more consistency)

iDisk is terribly slow. It doesn't hold a candle to Dropbox.

We use Dropbox as a file server and repository, I don't believe iDisk is coded with that level of sophistication / performance. It just works, flawlessly.

Please no... I love Dropbox as much as i hate apple.. it would be a nightmare..

no, they should be asking why mobileme can't learn from dropbox.

If they did purchase dropbox they would probably integrate it into mobileme and require a mobileme subscription in order to use it.

They'd probably just kill it with fire like they did with lala.

And make it like an iDevice and only allow sync from one computer...

it'd probably require a USB cord to sync too ;)

Then what, no porn on Dropbox? Agreed that they should not.

Tighter integration with an OS would be a good point. It's possible to open a file in your dropbox folder that's only partially synced and BANG!

If it popped up a dialog saying hold on, just syncing, it would be a lot better.

That's the biggest thing an OS vendor could easily bring to the table (other then a large pile of cash). Other then that. I can't see any upsides.

> If it popped up a dialog saying hold on, just syncing, it would be a lot better.

I prefer the idea of access to a folder that's out of sync than the inevitable frozen loading bars, 'loading' for all eternity and denying me access. A pop-up notice from the taskbar, or perhaps a background color change for folders still syncing, is as far as I'd take it.

As I say, I'd only do it when you open a file, not a folder. Of course looking at a folder is fine but opening a file that isn't really all there is not a good user experience!

Why not built there own wireless syncing system between iPhone/iPad/PC? They are a software company after all, aren't they? Can't be that hard. As I understand it they already have the basics done with MobileMe.

I guess one argument that it would also counter this: https://www.foldershare.com/,

but I don't know if that has any widespread use.

There are probably better fits than with apple.

When I first saw the post I thought of Live Mesh.

I find it very strange Microsoft has both of these services available.

http://www.mesh.com

No! Apple is a hardware company first and foremost. If they acquire Dropbox, they'd just mess it up!

I think it would be bad for Dropbox and for users if Apple bought them. Poor fit. One of Dropbox's strengths is that it's good at synching across multiple OS's and devices, from different vendors. Dropbox when independent has incentive to support Windows and Linux well. If Apple bought them they would be incented to cause/allow the Windows and Linux clients to become inferior, and would not necessarily have any incentive to add support for new platforms when they came along. Apple wants to be your single vendor solution, with vertical control. Dropbox is inherently a "horizontal" service.

You made a good point. But Dropbox it's a fantastic app in Windows and Linux too, and I guess that after PC vs Mac, Apple is going to come up with a new ad strategy "Mac is better"-ish again.

Safari and iTunes for Windows (as well as iPod and iPhone) are Apple's bait to get users ditch their PCs and buy a Mac. (Well, they are substandard apps, but the intention was/is that).

So I guess Apple could offer the best online sync experience with Dropbox and use it to say: "See? Now you can switch to Mac and instantly use all your documents you had on Windows! Isn't that great?"

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