There was a problem today, in that Dropbox connectivity was sporadic and, even when connected, incredibly and painfully slow. At one point some users couldn’t even connect to the Dropbox servers and even now, although downloads of shared files are running at normal speed, in my instance it’s still taking several minutes to sync even the smallest files. In order to share some data between a MacBook Air and an iMac, I quickly shifted over to Google Drive (which I hadn’t used before). The file transfer was quick and easy, as it had been when Dropbox was working.
What was an irritation was the fact that I couldn’t go straight to iCloud because the files were in PDF and PowerPoint format. The document sharing in iCloud is limited to those applications that have been granted iCloud functionality, instead of universal file access. There’s reasons and arguments as to why Apple has done this (which many people have covered before), but with 5GB sitting right there and unable to be utilized, it was a crying shame.
In an article by John Paczkowski on AllThingsD today, he says “Web services are likely to be Apple’s next big battleground. Premium hardware and software aren’t enough anymore. The market wants services, as well. And it wants services that work”.
iCloud is a service that does work. It certainly has a better uptime than MobileMe, and following today’s Dropbox behavior, seems to work better But, it would be great if it could work in more ways.
Functionality…