High Praise: Our Favorite Cloud Storage Apps
April 30, 2012
While it might not affect iOS users at the moment, the introduction of Google’s cloud storage service “Google Drive” (to virtually every other platform except iPad and iPhone, which are listed as “coming soon”) has driven home the concept of off-site file storage and backup with incredible force. There are no less than a dozen services available that will host your files on their remote servers, usually offering a couple gigs for free and additional space for a nominal fee. And while it should warm our hearts to know that competition is driving the cloud storage market into a frenzy of one-upmanship that has only resulted in grander and more robust offerings, it’s actually pretty intimidating to stand in front of this massive list of options. To make things simpler, read on for our recommended one-two cloud storage punch of iCloud & Dropbox, a perfect pair of services for any Apple user. (Android user? We’ll visit Google Drive once we’ve had more time to test it out!)
iCloud – The first obvious choice for an iOS/OS X user is iCloud, Apple’s proprietary cloud storage system that is built into all of their current operating systems. In theory, it’s simple: once enabled, iCloud will hum and whir in the background and automatically copy all of your important Apple-app data, making sure it is available to any of your devices at any time. And if you are living in an all-Apple ecosystem, with a MacBook, iPad, iPhone, and AppleTV (or any combination of those devices) it wouldn’t make sense not to enable iCloud and let it do its magical background syncing. All you need to do is turn it on. Sure there are some mild limitations, such as a 5 gig storage cap, photo back-ups only reaching back 30 days and 1,000 photos, or mp3 storage capping at 25,000 songs beyond those you’ve purchased through iTunes (which are unlimited); but these limits seem more then generous enough for the average user, and 10 gigs of additional space is available for $20/year, 20 gigs for $40/year, and 50 gigs for $100/year.
However, if you want to live outside the manicured garden of official Apple apps, you may be in some trouble, as all of its features are tied to your personal accounts and all of the data to be backed up is generated and used within apps like Calendar, iTunes, and iWork. If you just want a catch-all bin that you can drop files into and then access them on the go from anywhere, at any time, iCloud isn’t interested in helping you. Enter, Dropbox…
Dropbox – Unlike iCloud, Dropbox doesn’t care what operating system runs your computer and smartphone or what apps you prefer to use day-to-day. All Dropbox cares about is giving you fast, easy access to whichever files you think need to be backed up in the cloud. Starting at 2 free gigs (with bonus space for referring friends and accessing your content from multiple devices, up to 18 gigs), Dropbox is essentially a folder in the sky that you can open from any modern computer, phone, or web browser. It could contain important documents, photos, multimedia files; whatever you want to store in it. And once your files are in your Dropbox account, not only can you get to them at any time, you can access many of those files directly through the Dropbox app or website without downloading them onto the device you’ve logged in with, and you can also create links directly to those files to be shared with friends, family, classmates or work associates. The icing on this particular cloud-cake is that Dropbox’s smooth app, ease of use, and open API has garnered it enough popularity to see it integrated directly into tons of different apps you likely already have, each ready to upload your data automatically to your dropbox, much like iCloud automatically sucks up your Apple-generated contacts and iWork files when it is enabled. If you like it so much that you find yourself hitting your head on the 2 gig cap, 50 more gigs are $9.99/month or $99/year, while 100 gigs are $19.99/month or $199/year.
As we said, there are a lot more cloud storage options out there, but the iCloud/Dropbox solution for Apple users seems to be a perfect fit. If you’d like to hear more about additional cloud storage apps such as SugarSync, Box, Cubby, or all the rest, sound off in the comments!
Alexei Bochenek is a lifelong tech nerd & film buff based in Los Angeles. When he’s not playing with his phone, it’s because the movie has started. Shhhhh!
