“Dropbox Just Changed Everything About How You Use Apps” says Kyle Wagner from Gizmodo
It’s not just syncing your files and folders anymore. It’s trying to sync literally everything on your phone, tablet, and computer. Game saves, settings, contacts, notes—all of it, and on any phone or tablet you have.
Kyle goes on to say that Dropbox is moving forward with what is calls Datastores. a new API that will power third party apps, enabling all developers to sync their apps over the cloud.
At the moment, we have apps that are only relevant for certain systems e.g. separate apps are needed for iphone/ipad and android with no way to interact; is that about to change? Click to see the full article.
Until this happens, what cloud storage / backup services can we use for free. How do Dropbox, iCloud, SkyDrive, Google Drive compare at the moment?
Dropbox
From dropbox.com, this has been a popular choice for quite some time (dropbox is often the first thing that comes to mind for those who have used cloud storage for some time).
SkyDrive
From Microsoft, Skydrive has also been around for some time too and although it comes with more free storage than Dropbox, it initially lacked some of the features (and the 25GB of free storage initially offered has been reduced to 7GB, still a generous amount for free!).
iCloud
More geared to apple users, iCloud is an almost automatic choice as it allows users to seamlessly backup all their iOS devices to the cloud and sync photos & documents between all their apple devices. 4GB free but only for photos, you need is a paid version for documents.
Google Drive
From Google (of course) and for everybody (you do need a google account); also very easy to use, letting you store and access your files anywhere, on the web, your HDD or on the go and each is updated when online.
Below is a summary of features for the Big Four
[table id=1 /]I use Dropbox and GoogleDrive mostly as I’ve had accounts for years, but there are many other choices as well as the offerings from the biggest companies. I recently tried & reviewed Copy.com (see here trishfindlay.com/free-data-storage-copy/) and so far have found it to be very easy to use and reliable.
Here are a few of these others – a browser search will give you more information.
Justcloud
Zipcloud
myPCBackup
Sugarsync
Copy
Backup Genie
SOS Online Backup
IBackup
Carbonite
Mozy
LiveDrive