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Comment by cloudwalking | Hacker News Reader

Deep iCloud integration into BOTH iOS and OS X is what makes iCloud incredible. Unfortunately Dropbox can't achieve this on Apple's platforms.

What Dropbox must accomplish is iCloud-level integration in Android. Pictures, app state, music... it all needs to automatically sync between phone, tablet, and desktop. Dropbox knows this--they're already cutting deals with HTC to be a fundamental part of Sense UI.

But iOS is lost for Dropbox. They will never be able to achieve the kind of deep integration that Apple will build with iCloud.

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For those of use without Apple devices, could you please elaborate on what this "deep integration" consists of, in particular ways in which it surpasses Dropbox?

Also, at the end of your comment, you say "that Apple will build", implying that some of iCloud's deep integration is yet to be delivered. Is this correct, or did you mean something else?

As tech companies normally do, I suspect many will offer their own iCloud type service, like Microsoft already has.

What I think Dropbox should do is offer their API and storage to companies who can brand it as their own for one large fee. Then the company can offer it to their users for free as an incentive to use them, or for a small fee as a cheap integrated cloud storage solution. I'm thinking companies like Verizon would embrace this, or maybe Google for their ChromeBooks.

Dropbox is a very good short term solution but I do think ultimately iCloud, Google's upcoming service, and Microsoft's SkyDrive will win-out. Being cross platform is an asset today but we're clearly moving towards a world where the cost of using multiple platform is just too high for most people. They will stick within the same ecosystem because it's just much easier.

Even if every person picks one "platform" (e.g. All Apple products with iCloud) and sticks with it, they still need to share files with each other, so there's still a need for Dropbox (or more generally, cross-platform file syncing).

Agreed. You may end up going with one platform, but I'll never have all my collaborators on my platform of choice.

I don't think it's lost so much as never attainable. Apple's position on making the "whole widget" is widely known. They were deluding themselves if they thought they, a third party, was going to achieve deep integration into an Apple operating system.

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