Man, I, too, hope they don't kill off MobileMe Gallery. It's the best way I know of to share photos with others. Please keep the Gallery functionality, Apple!
You can make folders inside each app's area (from inside the file open dialog), there's just no longer any concept of a grand filesystem where you view all your files, from all your apps, at once.
I really wish that people wouldn't confuse "I don't need xxxx" with "no one needs xxxx".
That may work for you, but it doesn't work for everyone. For example, when I work on a presentation or report or project, I may have 50 files that use 5 different applications. When I'm working on that project, it is convenient to have all of those files together. Your way would involve constantly having to migrate through folders in each different app to find the information I need. And then, when I need to share the files with a project team, I have to locate and email files from 5 different apps separately rather than simply emailing one folder and saying 'here are the project files'.
Your method is clumsy and slow if your needs are anything above the very basic level.
I use my iDisk a few times a week for sharing files between my work and home computers. Now I'll have to rely on a flash drive. What a step backwards.
Photo Gallery is elegant and un-matched in it's ability to share pictures. I've used it numerous times as a group repository for photos. I'd start a gallery then share the link so others at the event could upload their pics and we all could choose from the entire groups photos all in one place. Excellent! But not part of iCloud.
The Journal feature of iPhoto for iOS is pretty spiffy, but not as full featured as Mobile Me Galleries. No group sharing, no password protection, etc.
Another big feature of Mobile Me being dropped is the iWeb website hosting. I'm now having to pay $95 a year just to host my site.
iCloud is fine and all, but mostly I think it's a big step down from how I've been using Mobile Me and .Mac for years. Hopefully my multiple feedback emails to Apple will add to the voices not happy with the features we will loose with iCloud. I'd much rather pay $100 a year to keep Mobile Me than use the free iCloud.
Apple should have bought Dropbox and included in iCloud, no matter the price they were asking. It was probably / very likely much less than the $1B Facebook paid for Instagram.
I feel this decision indicates (unfortunately) that Steve (RIP) was not really in touch with the way world was moving (technology-wise). I think a younger Apple CEO would have done it.
It was chump change for Apple but I think Steve couldn't believe a service like Dropbox (or Instagram) could be worth $1B. Please note: Either could I but then I'm not running Facebook.
I know there were other reasons why Facebook paid that amount (eyeballs and getting into mobile) but I'm just commenting on the general nature of the deals, vis-à-vis Apple and Facebook.
Apple should have bought Dropbox and included in iCloud, no matter the price they were asking. It was probably / very likely much less than the $1B Facebook paid for Instagram.
The word is Apple tried but Dropbox didn't want to sell. Instead they decided to get funded from a venture capitalist. You can say that Apple didn't offer enough money and that everything is for sale, but that's not necessarily true and there is a limit to Dropbox's value.
FB paying $1B for Instagram certainly proves nothing about Apple or Dropbox. I'd say it shows that Zuckerburg was foolish to pay that much for Instagram.
I think its clear that folks holding out to the bitter end (like me) are gaining some benefits from doing so.
First, I'm getting a free copy of Snow Leopard for my old Mini. Nice.
Second, I think I just got some extra storage.
Third, I dunno if this was in before but I got the option to keep my old .mac address for non-Lion machines.
Hopefully by the time June 30 rolls around there will be a new iPhoto for the mac with journal that has password protection and sharing. Maybe even, hope beyond hope, an iWeb replacement with HTML5 support even though I haven't used iWeb in a couple years.
The word is Apple tried but Dropbox didn't want to sell. Instead they decided to get funded from a venture capitalist. You can say that Apple didn't offer enough money and that everything is for sale, but that's not necessarily true and there is a limit to Dropbox's value.
FB paying $1B for Instagram certainly proves nothing about Apple or Dropbox. I'd say it shows that Zuckerburg was foolish to pay that much for Instagram.
I heard that too but everyone has a price ;-)
My suggestion / hypothesis was that Apple forgot to try $1B because it was Steve (or me or you) making the deal not Mark.
Dropbox would have rounded off iCloud - the very fact that they tried to buy it indicates that, I believe. They were just the wrong generation buying.
I think the #1 hardware / software product company struggles to see cloud services for anything more than the halo effect.
The future is the cloud and commodity products - Samsung make very nice phones too, Apple's services win for now.
Siri is one silver lining though - I think the future includes Siri and Apple is going there first.
My suggestion / hypothesis was that Apple forgot to try $1B because it was Steve (or me or you) making the deal not Mark.
Dropbox would have rounded off iCloud - the very fact that they tried to buy it indicates that, I believe. They were just the wrong generation buying.
I think the #1 hardware / software product company struggles to see cloud services for anything more than the halo effect.
The future is the cloud and commodity products - Samsung make very nice phones too, Apple's services win for now.
Siri is one silver lining though - I think the future includes Siri and Apple is going there first.
Cheers,
Ashley.
I mostly agree. Dropbox would have rounded off iCloud nicely. The one feature I'm really going to miss is file storage (beyond the simple storage available in iCloud). It's important enough that I am going to spend money to use a third party service.
The only minor disagreement is that if Dropbox didn't want to sell, I wouldn't have simply kept increasing the bid. Search for 'free online file storage' and you'll find that there are dozens of companies doing this already. If Dropbox didn't want to sell, someone else would. Or, even better, create it yourself. It's not that complicated - especially when Apple already had the capability with iDisk. For a tiny fraction of what it would have cost to buy Dropbox, they could have simply moved iDisk into iCloud. Even if they had to spend a significant amount of money updating it and fixing bugs/performance issues, it would have been far less expensive than paying $1 B for Dropbox.
I'm still hoping that Apple will change their mind and add iDisk back before killing it off.
My suggestion / hypothesis was that Apple forgot to try $1B because it was Steve (or me or you) making the deal not Mark.
Dropbox would have rounded off iCloud - the very fact that they tried to buy it indicates that, I believe. They were just the wrong generation buying.
I think the #1 hardware / software product company struggles to see cloud services for anything more than the halo effect.
The future is the cloud and commodity products - Samsung make very nice phones too, Apple's services win for now.
Siri is one silver lining though - I think the future includes Siri and Apple is going there first.
Cheers,
Ashley.
1) Sure, but sometimes the price isn't money and you have to take into consideration the cost to Dropbox's owners. It's possible that Dropbox didn't simply want to be folded into Apple and forgotten so they went with funding instead of buying stripped of their talent.
2) I say talent, not IP, because every part of Dropbox has been a part of Apple for a long time. Dropbox is much like Apple in their HW and OS combinations in that the sum of the parts pales in comparison to the part combination and configuration of the parts.
3) I think Tim Cook (and Steve Jobs) realize that iCloud is very important. I seem to recall at least Cook making that comment in the past. Note that Apple has one of the most successful and popular internet service with iTS so they aren't completely oblivious to it, they just need to understand how to make the experience as Apple-like as Dropbox.
4) iCloud is a major step in the right direction. Dropping iDisk is part of that, too. Regardless of whether you like or use iDisk on a daily basis it's archaic in every way and needs to die for Apple to be able to push forward. It's part of the problem!
5) While app-centric storage makes perfect sense I do hope that Apple sees that it's not the only solution (or devs realize they can use iCloud APIs to make their own hierarchal storage solution). There are also plenty of other features that should be built into iCloud, like versioning. Outside of saving versions, an option to use a general storage area, and sharing folders within that area with other iCloud members all other options are just gravy. Those three things already exist within Apple's knowledge base so it's possible they could be added this summer.
Or, even better, create it yourself. It's not that complicated - especially when Apple already had the capability with iDisk. For a tiny fraction of what it would have cost to buy Dropbox, they could have simply moved iDisk into iCloud.
Perhaps this is where the issue is with people wanting iDisk moved into iCloud. IT'S NOTHING LIKE DROPBOX. I already posted a laundry list of issues and differences between the two that should have opened your eyes to how iDisk is not like or in any way as capable as Dropbox.
1) Sure, but sometimes the price isn't money and you have to take into consideration the cost to Dropbox's owners. It's possible that Dropbox didn't simply want to be folded into Apple and forgotten so they went with funding instead of buying stripped of their talent.
2) I say talent, not IP, because every part of Dropbox has been a part of Apple for a long time. Dropbox is much like Apple in their HW and OS combinations in that the sum of the parts pales in comparison to the part combination and configuration of the parts.
3) I think Tim Cook (and Steve Jobs) realize that iCloud is very important. I seem to recall at least Cook making that comment in the past. Note that Apple has one of the most successful and popular internet service with iTS so they aren't completely oblivious to it, they just need to understand how to make the experience as Apple-like as Dropbox.
4) iCloud is a major step in the right direction. Dropping iDisk is part of that, too. Regardless of whether you like or use iDisk on a daily basis it's archaic in every way and needs to die for Apple to be able to push forward. It's part of the problem!
5) While app-centric storage makes perfect sense I do hope that Apple sees that it's not the only solution (or devs realize they can use iCloud APIs to make their own hierarchal storage solution). There are also plenty of other features that should be built into iCloud, like versioning. Outside of saving versions, an option to use a general storage area, and sharing folders within that area with other iCloud members all other options are just gravy. Those three things already exist within Apple's knowledge base so it's possible they could be added this summer.
For a large group of users (i.e., those who only want to keep their files sync'd across multiple devices, iDisk worked just fine. I was perfectly happy with it (a little better performance would have been nice but it didn't stop me from using it). So dropping iDisk means that many people who were happy with the solution now have nothing. How is that a step in the right direction? Why not leave it in place so that some percentage of people (actually a fairly large percentage from my experience) are happy and then let the few who are unhappy seek third party solutions. Or gradually improve it so that it satisfies a larger number of people over time? Dropping something because a small number of people want it to be different doesn't make any sense.
For the reasons given above, I believe that the app-centric storage model doesn't make sense. If you never use more than one app for a project and if your needs are simple, it might make sense. But when you have thousands of files covering hundreds of different projects (actually, on my computer, it's more like tens of thousands of files covering thousands of different projects - and I'm not all that unusual), the app centric model breaks down. If I want to share a project with the work group, I have to simply send one folder today. Under the app centric model, I need to launch each app I used, open each file I used, send each file via email, then close the file. The recipient will get at least one email for each app (possibly more) and have to repeat the above process to reassemble things. Plus, it will never be as easy to keep track of projects. Let's say that I have 40 files in a project. 20 Word files, 20 Excel files, 4 Filemaker projects, 3 PDFs, 2 JPGs, and one Photoshop file. When I decide to send all of those files to colleagues, how likely do you think it is that I'll remember every single one?
Unfortunately, though, it looks like Skydrive isn't going to work, either. First, I had to change a bunch of file names because it has the file name limitations of Windows (too many forbidden characters).
A lot of Mac users got into a bad habit of naming their files with all kinds of crazy characters back in the pre OS X and pre Internet days. Unfortunately that is just not going to work out in this era. I recently received a backup CD Mac OS 9 Quark files all named with some nutty italicizes "f" looking character. Could not even list the directory on OS X, Linux, or Windows. They provided a print out of the directory so I knew the file names but I could not access them. Those filenames actually locked up my Mac.
"...Mark Zuckerberg plotting ways to collaborate over generous portions of bison meat (the Facebook cofounder is eating only what he kills this year)."
Perhaps this is where the issue is with people wanting iDisk moved into iCloud. IT'S NOTHING LIKE DROPBOX. I already posted a laundry list of issues and differences between the two that should have opened your eyes to how iDisk is not like or in any way as capable as Dropbox.
You're playing the geek game. Listing a bunch of specifications and saying that the products are nothing alike is silly.
What do the two technologies do? They allow you to store files remotely and access them from multiple devices. Both of them do that - and do it well. Your pretense that they're nothing alike is just plain absurd.
Does Dropbox have more features? I'll take your word for it, but I have no way of knowing. I never wanted to use it for anything more than a simple file sync utility like iDisk - and both of them meet my needs perfectly. If someone only needs a Honda Civic, why should they be forced to live with a Chevy Suburban? Because YOU want to demand that every vehicle needs all sorts of unique features? Who make you the arbiter?
Apple could have left iDisk in place - and many, many people would have been happy. I know perhaps several dozen iDisk users - and it met all of their needs in its current format. So by leaving iDisk alone, many people would have been happier than seeing it dropped. If you don't like iDisk? Fine. Use something else. No one is forcing you to use it. But don't take away my functionality because you have a laundry list of geeky needs that don't apply to everyone.
Waiting for people to say how they wont be able to live without iDisk.
Let's face it. Outside of the USA iDisk never really worked that well. The performance was slow and spotty at best for everyone I know who used it including myself. Copying a file to a DVD and taking it home with you was often much, much faster.
The only good thing about it was the sharing of large files through that custom link. I miss that still.
The only reason that really worked though was that it didn't matter how long it took to upload the file or how long it took the person you were sending it to to download it, thus getting around the horrible slowness problem that iDisk had throughout it's lifetime.
For a large group of users (i.e., those who only want to keep their files sync'd across multiple devices, iDisk worked just fine.
No segmenting of files so that a lost connection doesn't require resending the entire file again? You don't see how this consumes time and data? You don't see how not being able to close up a notebook at a coffee shop or after a class as you're saving my files to the cloud because you're only part way done with syncing them is a problem? You consider that to be a 2012 solution? You don't think that sending personal information without encryption over WiFi isn't a problem?
There are now delta-encodings which not only keep you from having to resend all the data but allow you to only send updates if you change a file and to access different versions if you need to correct a mistake. You now have AES-256 encryption with all data. You really think those are just pointless features that have no place in the real world?
A lot of Mac users got into a bad habit of naming their files with all kinds of crazy characters back in the pre OS X and pre Internet days. Unfortunately that is just not going to work out in this era. I recently received a backup CD Mac OS 9 Quark files all named with some nutty italicizes "f" looking character. Could not even list the directory on OS X, Linux, or Windows. They provided a print out of the directory so I knew the file names but I could not access them. Those filenames actually locked up my Mac.
Why should there be a limitation at all? For example, Skydrive rejected all files with a backslash (which I used to date files such as "Expense report 9/2/05") or a hyphen, or an ampersand (such as "Department P&L 5/15/03"). It was bad enough 15 years ago that Windows was incapable of handling common characters, but when I shared files, they were automatically converted to something that Windows could handle. They can't figure out how to do it today? After all, Dropbox doesn't care about those characters. iDisk doesn't care about those characters. Other on-line file storage doesn't care about those characters. Why does Skydrive? (Other than the obvious that it's a Microsoft product and they automatically assume that everyone on the planet uses Windows so there's no provision for the exceptions).
No segmenting of files so that a lost connection doesn't require resending the entire file again? You don't see how this consumes time and data? You don't see how not being able to close up a notebook at a coffee shop or after a class as you're saving my files to the cloud because you're only part way done with syncing them is a problem? You consider that to be a 2012 solution? You don't think that sending personal information without encryption over WiFi isn't a problem?
There are now delta-encodings which not only keep you from having to resend all the data but allow you to only send updates if you change a file and to access different versions if you need to correct a mistake. You now have AES-256 encryption with all data. You really think those are just pointless features that have no place in the real world?
None of those things ever caused me a problem - nor do they affect everyone as you are pretending. So I have to re-send a file occasionally? Big deal. It's just not that big a deal since the file is sync'd on my computer. I can continue to use it and it will sync when I have a good connection. Only rarely has it ever created a problem.
Could it be better? Sure. And there's no reason Apple couldn't fix that issue. But arguing that iDisk is totally useless and needs to be dropped just because it might occasionally have to send a file again is ridiculous.
For a very small number of people who are routinely sending multi-GB files, it might be a big issue, but they're free to use something else.
Comments
Man, I, too, hope they don't kill off MobileMe Gallery. It's the best way I know of to share photos with others. Please keep the Gallery functionality, Apple!
I really wish that people wouldn't confuse "I don't need xxxx" with "no one needs xxxx".
That may work for you, but it doesn't work for everyone. For example, when I work on a presentation or report or project, I may have 50 files that use 5 different applications. When I'm working on that project, it is convenient to have all of those files together. Your way would involve constantly having to migrate through folders in each different app to find the information I need. And then, when I need to share the files with a project team, I have to locate and email files from 5 different apps separately rather than simply emailing one folder and saying 'here are the project files'.
Your method is clumsy and slow if your needs are anything above the very basic level.
I use my iDisk a few times a week for sharing files between my work and home computers. Now I'll have to rely on a flash drive. What a step backwards.
Photo Gallery is elegant and un-matched in it's ability to share pictures. I've used it numerous times as a group repository for photos. I'd start a gallery then share the link so others at the event could upload their pics and we all could choose from the entire groups photos all in one place. Excellent! But not part of iCloud.
The Journal feature of iPhoto for iOS is pretty spiffy, but not as full featured as Mobile Me Galleries. No group sharing, no password protection, etc.
Another big feature of Mobile Me being dropped is the iWeb website hosting. I'm now having to pay $95 a year just to host my site.
iCloud is fine and all, but mostly I think it's a big step down from how I've been using Mobile Me and .Mac for years. Hopefully my multiple feedback emails to Apple will add to the voices not happy with the features we will loose with iCloud. I'd much rather pay $100 a year to keep Mobile Me than use the free iCloud.
So despite all the talk of better, modern options being discussed you've decided that you'll inconvenience yourself by using a "backwards" option?
Apple should have bought Dropbox and included in iCloud, no matter the price they were asking. It was probably / very likely much less than the $1B Facebook paid for Instagram.
I feel this decision indicates (unfortunately) that Steve (RIP) was not really in touch with the way world was moving (technology-wise). I think a younger Apple CEO would have done it.
It was chump change for Apple but I think Steve couldn't believe a service like Dropbox (or Instagram) could be worth $1B. Please note: Either could I but then I'm not running Facebook.
I know there were other reasons why Facebook paid that amount (eyeballs and getting into mobile) but I'm just commenting on the general nature of the deals, vis-à-vis Apple and Facebook.
Cheers,
Ashley.
The word is Apple tried but Dropbox didn't want to sell. Instead they decided to get funded from a venture capitalist. You can say that Apple didn't offer enough money and that everything is for sale, but that's not necessarily true and there is a limit to Dropbox's value.
FB paying $1B for Instagram certainly proves nothing about Apple or Dropbox. I'd say it shows that Zuckerburg was foolish to pay that much for Instagram.
I think its clear that folks holding out to the bitter end (like me) are gaining some benefits from doing so.
First, I'm getting a free copy of Snow Leopard for my old Mini. Nice.
Second, I think I just got some extra storage.
Third, I dunno if this was in before but I got the option to keep my old .mac address for non-Lion machines.
Hopefully by the time June 30 rolls around there will be a new iPhoto for the mac with journal that has password protection and sharing. Maybe even, hope beyond hope, an iWeb replacement with HTML5 support even though I haven't used iWeb in a couple years.
If not, I still got a free copy of SL.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
The word is Apple tried but Dropbox didn't want to sell. Instead they decided to get funded from a venture capitalist. You can say that Apple didn't offer enough money and that everything is for sale, but that's not necessarily true and there is a limit to Dropbox's value.
FB paying $1B for Instagram certainly proves nothing about Apple or Dropbox. I'd say it shows that Zuckerburg was foolish to pay that much for Instagram.
I heard that too but everyone has a price ;-)
My suggestion / hypothesis was that Apple forgot to try $1B because it was Steve (or me or you) making the deal not Mark.
Dropbox would have rounded off iCloud - the very fact that they tried to buy it indicates that, I believe. They were just the wrong generation buying.
I think the #1 hardware / software product company struggles to see cloud services for anything more than the halo effect.
The future is the cloud and commodity products - Samsung make very nice phones too, Apple's services win for now.
Siri is one silver lining though - I think the future includes Siri and Apple is going there first.
Cheers,
Ashley.
I mostly agree. Dropbox would have rounded off iCloud nicely. The one feature I'm really going to miss is file storage (beyond the simple storage available in iCloud). It's important enough that I am going to spend money to use a third party service.
The only minor disagreement is that if Dropbox didn't want to sell, I wouldn't have simply kept increasing the bid. Search for 'free online file storage' and you'll find that there are dozens of companies doing this already. If Dropbox didn't want to sell, someone else would. Or, even better, create it yourself. It's not that complicated - especially when Apple already had the capability with iDisk. For a tiny fraction of what it would have cost to buy Dropbox, they could have simply moved iDisk into iCloud. Even if they had to spend a significant amount of money updating it and fixing bugs/performance issues, it would have been far less expensive than paying $1 B for Dropbox.
I'm still hoping that Apple will change their mind and add iDisk back before killing it off.
1) Sure, but sometimes the price isn't money and you have to take into consideration the cost to Dropbox's owners. It's possible that Dropbox didn't simply want to be folded into Apple and forgotten so they went with funding instead of buying stripped of their talent.
2) I say talent, not IP, because every part of Dropbox has been a part of Apple for a long time. Dropbox is much like Apple in their HW and OS combinations in that the sum of the parts pales in comparison to the part combination and configuration of the parts.
3) I think Tim Cook (and Steve Jobs) realize that iCloud is very important. I seem to recall at least Cook making that comment in the past. Note that Apple has one of the most successful and popular internet service with iTS so they aren't completely oblivious to it, they just need to understand how to make the experience as Apple-like as Dropbox.
4) iCloud is a major step in the right direction. Dropping iDisk is part of that, too. Regardless of whether you like or use iDisk on a daily basis it's archaic in every way and needs to die for Apple to be able to push forward. It's part of the problem!
5) While app-centric storage makes perfect sense I do hope that Apple sees that it's not the only solution (or devs realize they can use iCloud APIs to make their own hierarchal storage solution). There are also plenty of other features that should be built into iCloud, like versioning. Outside of saving versions, an option to use a general storage area, and sharing folders within that area with other iCloud members all other options are just gravy. Those three things already exist within Apple's knowledge base so it's possible they could be added this summer.
In case anyone missed links to the Forbes article on Dropbox and it's founders. Well worth a read.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriabarret/2011/10/18/dropbox-the-inside-story-of-techs-hottest-startup/
Perhaps this is where the issue is with people wanting iDisk moved into iCloud. IT'S NOTHING LIKE DROPBOX. I already posted a laundry list of issues and differences between the two that should have opened your eyes to how iDisk is not like or in any way as capable as Dropbox.
I disagree strongly with #4 and #5.
For a large group of users (i.e., those who only want to keep their files sync'd across multiple devices, iDisk worked just fine. I was perfectly happy with it (a little better performance would have been nice but it didn't stop me from using it). So dropping iDisk means that many people who were happy with the solution now have nothing. How is that a step in the right direction? Why not leave it in place so that some percentage of people (actually a fairly large percentage from my experience) are happy and then let the few who are unhappy seek third party solutions. Or gradually improve it so that it satisfies a larger number of people over time? Dropping something because a small number of people want it to be different doesn't make any sense.
For the reasons given above, I believe that the app-centric storage model doesn't make sense. If you never use more than one app for a project and if your needs are simple, it might make sense. But when you have thousands of files covering hundreds of different projects (actually, on my computer, it's more like tens of thousands of files covering thousands of different projects - and I'm not all that unusual), the app centric model breaks down. If I want to share a project with the work group, I have to simply send one folder today. Under the app centric model, I need to launch each app I used, open each file I used, send each file via email, then close the file. The recipient will get at least one email for each app (possibly more) and have to repeat the above process to reassemble things. Plus, it will never be as easy to keep track of projects. Let's say that I have 40 files in a project. 20 Word files, 20 Excel files, 4 Filemaker projects, 3 PDFs, 2 JPGs, and one Photoshop file. When I decide to send all of those files to colleagues, how likely do you think it is that I'll remember every single one?
A lot of Mac users got into a bad habit of naming their files with all kinds of crazy characters back in the pre OS X and pre Internet days. Unfortunately that is just not going to work out in this era. I recently received a backup CD Mac OS 9 Quark files all named with some nutty italicizes "f" looking character. Could not even list the directory on OS X, Linux, or Windows. They provided a print out of the directory so I knew the file names but I could not access them. Those filenames actually locked up my Mac.
"...Mark Zuckerberg plotting ways to collaborate over generous portions of bison meat (the Facebook cofounder is eating only what he kills this year)."
WTF!
You're playing the geek game. Listing a bunch of specifications and saying that the products are nothing alike is silly.
What do the two technologies do? They allow you to store files remotely and access them from multiple devices. Both of them do that - and do it well. Your pretense that they're nothing alike is just plain absurd.
Does Dropbox have more features? I'll take your word for it, but I have no way of knowing. I never wanted to use it for anything more than a simple file sync utility like iDisk - and both of them meet my needs perfectly. If someone only needs a Honda Civic, why should they be forced to live with a Chevy Suburban? Because YOU want to demand that every vehicle needs all sorts of unique features? Who make you the arbiter?
Apple could have left iDisk in place - and many, many people would have been happy. I know perhaps several dozen iDisk users - and it met all of their needs in its current format. So by leaving iDisk alone, many people would have been happier than seeing it dropped. If you don't like iDisk? Fine. Use something else. No one is forcing you to use it. But don't take away my functionality because you have a laundry list of geeky needs that don't apply to everyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Waiting for people to say how they wont be able to live without iDisk.
Let's face it. Outside of the USA iDisk never really worked that well. The performance was slow and spotty at best for everyone I know who used it including myself. Copying a file to a DVD and taking it home with you was often much, much faster.
The only good thing about it was the sharing of large files through that custom link. I miss that still.
The only reason that really worked though was that it didn't matter how long it took to upload the file or how long it took the person you were sending it to to download it, thus getting around the horrible slowness problem that iDisk had throughout it's lifetime.
There are now delta-encodings which not only keep you from having to resend all the data but allow you to only send updates if you change a file and to access different versions if you need to correct a mistake. You now have AES-256 encryption with all data. You really think those are just pointless features that have no place in the real world?
Why should there be a limitation at all? For example, Skydrive rejected all files with a backslash (which I used to date files such as "Expense report 9/2/05") or a hyphen, or an ampersand (such as "Department P&L 5/15/03"). It was bad enough 15 years ago that Windows was incapable of handling common characters, but when I shared files, they were automatically converted to something that Windows could handle. They can't figure out how to do it today? After all, Dropbox doesn't care about those characters. iDisk doesn't care about those characters. Other on-line file storage doesn't care about those characters. Why does Skydrive? (Other than the obvious that it's a Microsoft product and they automatically assume that everyone on the planet uses Windows so there's no provision for the exceptions).
None of those things ever caused me a problem - nor do they affect everyone as you are pretending. So I have to re-send a file occasionally? Big deal. It's just not that big a deal since the file is sync'd on my computer. I can continue to use it and it will sync when I have a good connection. Only rarely has it ever created a problem.
Could it be better? Sure. And there's no reason Apple couldn't fix that issue. But arguing that iDisk is totally useless and needs to be dropped just because it might occasionally have to send a file again is ridiculous.
For a very small number of people who are routinely sending multi-GB files, it might be a big issue, but they're free to use something else.