New Dropbox for iOS | Hacker News Reader

New Dropbox for iOS

blog.dropbox.com

57 pointsrkudeshi23 comments

I don't know if I really get Dropbox for iOS. I absolutely love Dropbox the platform, have an annual subscription to a 100GB share- and I use it constantly, all day, to share files both between my various desktops/laptops, as well as for sharing files with friends.

I access dropbox from my iPhone and iPad constantly as well, but I do so from GoodReader, where I download files, organize them, read them, password secure them, etc...

I've tried out the new "Photo's" feature - but I already have 100% intelligent photo syncing between my systems with Photostream - so I stopped the camera from syncing after about 5 minutes - my photos are already in my Camera Roll + PhotoStream, and therefore in my Aperture Library. I couldn't understand how, or why, I would want to use Dropbox to sync them again.

This is one of those extraordinarily rare times where I think Apple's Photostream, with shared photostreams, and Albums, both public and shared - actually provide the "Web/Internet" services that I want.

Anybody else find a use for the iOS client for Dropbox?

I agree about native Photostream working better than Dropbox's camera upload stuff. But as for the other uses, you've already nailed it: easy access to your files. You just use a $5 app to do it, whereas Dropbox's is free. What's not to get?

I find it hard to believe that anybody who has an iPhone, and works with documents, hasn't purchased GoodReader. It's on the top-3 of applications for people who work with documents, and the top-10 of iPhone apps in general.

But, I'll accept your premise - for the casual user of Dropbox, who doesn't ever want to buy apps for their iPhone (unusual, the vast majority of the value of an iPhone comes from it's ecosystem, but i'll run with it) - they can access their files through the iOS client.

But, really, everyone who does this seriously should have Goodreader on their iPhone.

Clearly you don't sell iPhone apps for a living :-) you'd be shocked how many people won't pay for apps. I've met multi-millionaires who refuse to pay for apps. Not kidding at all.

It is a natural extension of my use on computers, storing files that I may want to access while away, and passing files between my work and home computers. I use the iOS apps to view (sometimes important) PDFs and the odd plain text file. It works great.

I don't care for the photo uploading features, and I wish Dropbox (and Google+) didn't ask to enable it every few updates.

Photostream is wifi only, with dropbox you Can upload over cellular.

I use the iOS Dropbox client mostly for uploading & syncing pictures and videos between: iPhone, iPad, desktop PCs and laptops. Sometimes for checking files in my Dropbox folder.

Dropbox works well on all three OS I use of which Linux is my main. I don't know what iCloud and Photostream (no syncing of videos?) are like now but it didn't really work well when it was introduced and I'm taking a guess it doesn't work on Linux natively.

I guess I'm the reverse of you: I've already got photo and video syncing with Dropbox so why use Photostream? If that feature wasn't in Dropbox's client, I'd rarely use the client.

Still can't sort folder items by date added or date modified. sigh.

I have folders with tons of photographs in them that I upload from my desktop. Whenever I'm on my ipad or iphone, finding a picture I just uploaded is an absolute nightmare if I can't remember the name ... I usually have to go load up dropbox.com in my browser, do the sort there and download the file.

I guess my particular use case doesn't occur that often :(

Same here. I write a lot of notes in markdown that I sync using Dropbox. I often want to read and edit those notes on my phone or ipad, but I don't remember the exact file names.

Similarly, I wish photo apps had a "use most recent photo" button, instead of making me select my photos, scroll down to the very bottom, and click on the last square.

I toss PDFs I want to read on my phone into dropbox. This use case happens often for me. I have to consciously rename the PDFs I want to read in the next few moments with prepended names like ! so they appear at the top.

Wow, there isn't much love in the comments below that post on dropbox.com. I find this is surprising to a point.

I love Dropbox, and I use it in exotic ways. That said, I don't "get" why Dropbox wants to be involved with my photos. I've balked at this, and I am surprised that Dropbox seems to be over-pushing in this direction.

Someone once said that 'Dropbox does only one thing, and it does that one thing VERY well'. I fear that this fixation on photos may be the juncture where Dropbox lost its focus, and ultimately loses the game.

As a succinct commenter posted on Dropbox.com: 'I don't need to post photos to Dropbox'.

I think what's so great about Dropbox is that they don't really have a focus. They do synchronization, and they're superb at it.

It seems to me that Dropbox is trying to change how customers perceive them and that managing photos is just the first step. Until recently, I think they've largely been viewed as a handy service to share files quickly between friends and across devices. There are a certainly a lot of exotic use cases for their product, and some other commenters have touched on specific ones, but the average person doesn't take advantage of them (or have them). If Dropbox can position itself as a base to store and share photos, videos, music, etc (notice the range of sharing options in the top right of the iPad in the blog post) they can give users peace of mind and easy access to content that is now strewn across several services and not carefully curated in other storage solutions.

Fair enough, although I actually love that it wants my photos; I let it have them off my main (Android) phone but not from any other devices. As soon as I walk in the door at home my pics are on my PC, with no effort at all. Recently when the SD card in my phone went bad for some reason it meant I hadn't lost anything at all. It works very well indeed.

I hated that dropbox wanted to sync my photos. "Oh no, there goes some of my quota" I thought. But I was lazy and didn't turn off the feature and now wonder how I got along without it. Take a picture and like magic it's on my computer.

So now I get it, but I really resisted it and am not sure how Dropbox can over come this singular messaging problem.

A little nitpick on a glitch that I immediately noticed:

The navigation bar (title bar) up on top looks pretty horrible. Opacity of the icons flickers when navigating back and forth, and "very long folder names..." are truncated differently the moment animation starts, causing them to jump around and overlay buttons for the duration of the animation.

Is it possible to share a folder via the IOS app? I keep trying to do this and can't figure it out and not sure if it's just me or if it's not possible.

I don't think you can. You can delete and create new folders, and I think thats about it.

> And since Dropbox is a one stop shop for all your memories, you can also check out the photos you’ve uploaded from everywhere else!

As long as I'm online.

If I could mark whole folders as favorites and have them available offline, I would subscribe in a heartbeat and host all my photos on Dropbox. Why do laptops do this by default but the iPad can't?

iTunes' sync of photo folders serves me well, but it's a one-way street. I'd love to edit images on the iPad and have them sync back when I'm online. I'm waiting for Apple, Adobe and Dropbox to fill the niché but how long should I hold my breath?

Also, has there ever been a poll if users (not designers, managers or HN regulars) prefer custom UI over the stock iOS UI?

Dropbox? I have switched to Cubby which has almost every feature of Dropbox(no photos, but Photostream does photo syncing well for me and I use Picasa for online backup).

The thing that I like about Cubby is that it is quite fast and you can sync any folder! And they offer more free space out of box. (I'm waiting for their pricing to be announced and will surely switch to paid version)

http://cubby.com

I am currently leaning toward replacing my Dropbox with Google drive. More (free) capacity, better integration with other Google services, easy creation of notes and spreadsheets, easier file sharing...

Anyone else feeling the same way?

The Drive client on the Mac was badly behaved in my experience, putting a lot of load on the system and constantly grinding Spotlight indexing. I've uninstalled it until it has time to mature.

Does it still compresses the photos on the iPad? Cause that's the only thing holding me back from subscribing.

Saving a picture finally downloads it at full resolution rather than a horribly compressed one. Thumbs up.

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