Local Cloud
Dropbox has become my lifeline. I use it for almost everything I do now including my current projects, all of my documents and notes, and large-file sharing. The difference between Dropbox and other cloud-based services is that I have a local copy on each machine using Dropbox. So my documents are always in sync and up to date both locally and on the cloud. I then backup my local copy using Time Machine. Dropbox keeps track of changes in the cloud and even keeps copies of files I overwrite or delete. I have backups on backups now. The older versions of files kept on Dropbox has saved me on more than one occasion. The solution is so utterly elegant that I can’t imagine a world without it.
Dropbox Dropkicks iDisk
Compare that with Apple’s offering for MobileMe. iDisk is slow, unreliable, and causes my computer to hang on restart or shut down if I try to keep a local copy. The slowness of iDisk is striking in comparison to Dropbox. However, if you look at the base structure of iDisk when it’s first opened, Apple clearly thought of iDisk as a mirror or copy of the default home folder on Mac OS X. iDisk is nowhere near ready to be a Home Folder replacement but Dropbox sure feels like it could.
Waxing Philisophical
Imagine for a moment what it could mean to Apple if they were to buy Dropbox. They could leverage that massive new storage facility where they could house every Mac user’s Home folder. The user only needs to turn the service on and then forget about it. Apple would get a product that instantly works across Macs and PCs and they could get Windows users accustomed to the new Home folder concept. And, as an amazing side effect, make the transition from Windows to Mac even easier.
They could also add advanced control to allow you to choose what content only lives on the cloud and what content syncs. Content you purchase on iTunes, for instance, could be stored automatically on the cloud with an option to download to your local computer. Then you could stream that cloud-based movie or TV Show from your Mac, your iPhone, your AppleTV, or your iPad. This could help alleviate the growing need for larger and larger hard drives to accommodate all of this large media.
And, as John Gruber recently experienced, the thought of a hard drive failing is no longer scary. If all of your files are on every computer you sync, you’re only inconvenienced by a hard drive failure rather than ruined by it.
Back to Reality
It’s fun to dream but Apple seems to have some ill-fated love-affair with WebDAV. But it’s only slightly inconvenient to traverse one more directory for the Dropbox syncing. I’ve been using it for over a year as my only file system for work and new documents and it has performed admirably. I’ve never had a single issue with the service and that gives me more confidence to trust the system with even more of my files. It’s a comfortable step into online storage. Rather than jumping in head first, the way Google would prefer, I get to ease into the idea with Dropbox. Having the copies locally is the key ingredient. There’s no reason for people not to use it, the service is free and the peace of mind is priceless.
