

Why iCloud won't beat Dropbox and the failure of Airdrop - asselinpaul
http://asselinpaul.calepin.co/Apple%20is%20flawed.html

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gburt
This is one hundred percent a personal opinion, but I suspect its one that I'm
not alone in.

I use iCloud and Dropbox, I don't even really see how they're competitors from
my perspective. iCloud does things like sync my iCal calendars and Safari
bookmarks, and Dropbox allows me to maintain a shared filesystem between all
my computers.

Dropbox is a form of free form backup/sharing, while iCloud is just a
convenient way to keep defined, structured data together for me.

~~~
DavidSJ
Apple is trying to build a post-filesystem world. When was the last time you
thought about file paths, or even folders, on an iOS device? Data is presented
to users with a structure determined by the application.

Apple's goal is not to compete with Dropbox directly; it is to make Dropbox
irrelevant.

~~~
jseliger
_Apple is trying to build a post-filesystem world. When was the last time you
thought about file paths, or even folders, on an iOS device?_

Whenever I've wanted to move data from one app to another—like when I want to
transfer a word from a note or txt to a dictionary, or when I'd like to move a
picture.

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pflats
Apple's goal with iCloud and Air* is not to compete with Dropbox. iCloud, in
general, seems poised so that no matter what device it originated on, you can
find your data.

Take a look at PhotoStream. Yes, you can't delete individual files, and yes,
it has very few features. That's not the point. The bottom line is that any
photo you took on your iPhone appears almost immediately on your other Apple
devices. You can view them on your AppleTV, you can flip through them on your
iPad, you can download them to iPhoto. There's no extra step, the photos just
appear.

iCloud is Apple's attempt for this to happen for all of your data. Airdrop is
a red herring. It's to solve the short-term problem of "I have a file on
Computer A, and I want to transfer it to Computer B." In the end, ideally,
this would never happen. Your app of choice would grab the file from iCloud
seamlessly.

I don't think Apple cares that this doesn't work on Windows. Like the new
owner of the Jaguars said, "I think I can clarify at this point for me a fan
is somebody who is a season ticket holder."

~~~
gburt
> Airdrop is a red herring. It's to solve the short-term problem of "I have a
> file on Computer A, and I want to transfer it to Computer B." In the end,
> ideally, this would never happen.

I think in the context of Airdrop, Computer B is presumed to be a different
person. The transaction is "giving away" a file, in this case, not "how do I
get it from my desktop to my laptop."

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techiferous
I view Apple as still very much a newbie in this space. Sure, they can make it
pretty and shiny, but I see them balking on the harder engineering challenges.

For example, because I was one of the doomed MobileMe users, I ended up having
two Apple IDs for my Apple assets. As a result of moving to iCloud, I had to
ditch one set of assets. Apple assumes you only have one Apple ID, which is
fine, but they do not offer you a way to merge two Apple accounts. In other
words, their walled garden is so tightly walled it doesn't even play nicely
with itself.

Another example is that they don't have a good user experience around
communicating what is going to happen when moving data from one device to
another. I had the hardest time getting my contacts from my old iPhone to
iCloud. What ended up happening is that I had to manually transfer the info
(yes, look at the iPhone contacts, type them into a file, then manually type
them back into my new iPhone) and actually in the process of moving to iCloud
I accidentally deleted all of my contacts without warning. Oops!

So Apple is still really green when it comes to smoothing out all of the rough
edges of this complex engineering challenge. My experience with DropBox has
been closer to the "it just works" experience.

~~~
ary
Since you can sync your contacts with your computer via iTunes, and then sync
your new iPhone with your computer, I am genuinely curious as to why you "had"
to manually type in this information. Having owned every iPhone except the 3G
this has never been my experience.

~~~
techiferous
My contacts ended up in a separate contact group, and there doesn't seem to be
a way to pull in contact info from an existing group into the iCloud group.

Keep in mind that I also had two Apple IDs.

------
rdl
Right conclusion (iCloud is DOA), but wrong reasoning.

Lots of people are 100% Apple ecosystem (I use Linux and FreeBSD servers, but
all my desktops/phones/laptops/etc. are Apple). I have only ever used Dropbox
from Apple platforms, too.

Yet, I still use Dropbox, and not iCloud. Why? Because so far, iCloud has been
totally useless. iTunes Match is marginally useful, but it was done internally
by Apple as a first-party thing (and really, iTunes and all online Apple
services are an embarrassment to a company which is so good at design; even
the online Apple Store is crap compared to their physical retail presence.
Some people should hate each other for every Apple Internet service.)

Basically no non-Apple first-party apps support iCloud in any meaningful way.
1Password, Chrome, ... Plenty of third-party apps support Dropbox API.

Dropbox may have three main things going for it (simple initial "put stuff in
a folder", cross-platform, and great API), but any ONE of those is sufficient.
Cross-platformness is the easiest one to discount (since even Dropbox isn't
cross-platform to the platforms I really care about, like Audi RNS-E, various
fitness tracking devices, people who aren't currently dropbox users, ...).

~~~
Zev
_…simple initial "put stuff in a folder…"_

Apple's goal with iCloud (and iOS) is to eliminate the concept of a folder in
the filesystem. Of course it won't work well for you. You _want_ folders and
files.

~~~
rdl
I'd be fine with syncing "data" vs. files, too, but no apps I use or care
about support iCloud.

~~~
flyt
iCloud has been available to end users for three months. Give it time to
accrete features, just like iOS.

------
RandallBrown
One of the great things about iCloud is that you don't actually "use" it. It
just sort of works (yeah yeah I know).

Dropbox is for file sharing. iCloud lets you forget about files. I don't
really view them as competitors, at least not direct competitors.

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YooLi
iCloud is an umbrella term. It makes no sense to compare iCloud to Dropbox.
Dropbox doesn't provide app syncing (calendar, contacts, mail, alarms, etc.),
it doesn't provide photo syncing, nor Music Match, or anything else iCloud
provides and conversely iCloud doesn't provide a portable file system like
Dropbox does. At some point iCloud could bundle Dropbox -like services under
the iCloud name, but at this point it doesn't.

I use photo stream all the time, rely on contact and calendar syncing, use
share music between all my devices AND use dropbox daily. Not once have I had
to decide if I should use dropbox for this or iCloud. They simply don't step
on each others toes.

------
stefanu
Drop box is just obvious next step: taking file-system to the cloud. Apple is
just unfortunately clumsy or it is up to something...

I have Apple ecosystem in my home and within couple of my friends. I just love
how it all works together well. Except one thing: sharing and syncing.

The document sharing between computer and ipad through iTunes->iPad->Apps->App
(in second! list) is just overcomplicated and does not even allow real
synchronisation. That way of sharing breaks logical document coupling as well
(by-project, for example). The way of sharing documents between apps is
limited as well and it forces me to have duplicates... There many other little
things.

I think (and strongly hope) that this is just a transient period. Looks like
Apple would like to get rid of classical file system "feel" on the user's
side. They either have no human friendly solution yet (measured on Apple
standards) or want to do it step-by-step, so users can accommodate to changes
gradually.

iCloud is application/document type based storage, iPad is application based
file storage. They even added a view to finder: "All My Files", which also
hides classical file system way of browsing files.

I do not think that Apple is done with file management evolution. But I feel,
that the classical hierarchical file system structure is not the way to go in
the cloud based file system...Consider not only your document syncing, but
also synchronized file sharing with custom categorization...

~~~
tobylane
Dropbox's idea of the cloud is file based. Apple's idea of the future of
computing (iOS and iCloud) is no files, you just assume apps will use the
cloud. It's clunky because it's not what we are used to, nor the app makers.

~~~
jiggy2011
I'm not so sure their long term view of the cloud is necessarily "file based"
(although it's debatable what that means specifically).

Dropbox was originally IIRC developed by a college student who had the problem
of sharing files easily between his home and college computers, dropbox was a
solution to that.

In the long term however , they have more or less solved the basic problem of
syncing files and used this to provide revenue to move into the future.

I see a good business model for them could be to provide a platform for
developers to build things that may in the background be syncing files (I
think it'll be a while before we have filesystemless servers especially since
unix is build around the concept of files) but from the end user point of view
are providing services like photo / calender sharing etc.

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prof_hobart
>Sadly, iCloud only supports Apple devices (which is understandable) but that
means that it will never be what it aspires to be. iCloud is unpractical and
reserved for the Mac addict that never touches any other computer.

Don't know if I'm missing some subtlety here, but I've got iCloud running
happily on my Windows PC. Details on how to do are on the Apple website -
<http://www.apple.com/icloud/setup/pc.html>

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mmahemoff
This is why I could never buy into the comment Steve Jobs supposedly made that
Dropbox is just a feature.

I'm still not convinced about the Dropbox developer experience though. I would
think web integration is key to them winning. Similar to the way FB wants Like
buttons everywhere, Dropbox wants Dropbox This everywhere. And yet, there's no
way to pass a URL and say "store that". Dev has to pull the URL and copy it
across, every time, and Dropbox has no idea it's the same URL.

A bit specific, but an example where Dropbox needs to invest its new capital
into making life easier for developers, especially if similar products from
say Google or Amazon emerge...which would presumably be cross-platform, unlike
Apple's offering.

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danieldk
We use Airdrop a lot for sharing large files over our local network, for that
it works great, and is a lot more efficient than Dropbox. But I agree that it
would be more useful if it's an open protocol.

With respect to iCloud - it makes little sense to make it generally available.
It's an free add-on (except iTunes Match) that ties you into 'the Apple
platform'. If you and your applications use iCloud for synchronization, and
it's limited to iOS and OS X, there is one more hoop to jump through if you
want to switch to another platform.

Whether Apple succeeds on that front, we have to see, and depends on things
such as adoption by third-party application developers.

------
cdcarter
iCloud's main draw is that provides MobileMe sync features for free. Anyone
who expects it to be a serious dropbox competitor when the folder based
filesystem is still prevalent isn't seeing why people are using iCloud.

~~~
CraigRood
Agree, iCloud isn't really a file sync it's more of an application data sync.
I moved from Googles cloud to calendar and contacts because of the seamless
sync between my iPhone and Mac.

I wouldn't say iCloud is DOA, more of a lack luster first appearance.

------
aufreak3
If you string together the cases of Appletalk, iChat, ping, FaceTime, and now
iCloud (photo stream in particular), the Apple model of 'communication' seems
always limited to the apple ecosystem. Apple doesn't seem to understand that
even if I have a full-Apple setup, people I want to communicate with may not.
As long as they don't see this as a fundamental issue, folks like Dropbox need
not worry. Once they do see it, though, and they decide to bring their design
sense to it all ..... hmmm I must be dreaming.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
The customers Apple is targeting with these services don't care. Apple is very
good at defining their customer and they are amazingly dedicated to keeping
feature creep from spoiling the experience for those users.

It isn't that Apple doesn't understand. They completely understand and make
choices to do A better rather than A+B so-so. I wish more companies would
follow suit rather. It's strong product design (the overlap between product
management and design in its true sense).

~~~
aufreak3
The point I was trying to make is not that Apple is bad at designing these
things. My point is that they seem to consistently miss the fact that
communication is a platform agnostic need. To give an exaggerated example,
would you buy an iPhone if it only let you make phone calls to other iPhones,
despite it's super super design? Would you buy a Mac that only let you send
emails to other macs?

~~~
SoftwareMaven
That's a really good point. However, it is easier to create the protocol in a
homogenous environment than to backfill a heterogeneous one. Case in point:
FaceTime. I wouldn't buy an iPhone if it could only talk to iPhones, because
the precedent has been set before. I don't have a problem with FaceTime being
Apple-only, because 1) there is no precedent and 2) Apple can potentially make
FaceTime better by limiting the platforms they worry about.

There may come a time where a competitor has all the features of FaceTime
(especially its ease of use) and have platform agnosticism. Then the decision
might change.

~~~
aufreak3
If you go by "skate to where the puck is going to be", the puck, when it comes
to communication, always moves towards platform agnostic protocols. (.. and
Skype provided a decent fraction of Facetime's functionality well before
Facetime).

If the likelihood of a person using platform A is P(A), then the likelihood of
two of them communicating is of the order of P(A)^2. So even if you have 20%
platform penetration, that only gives you a communication likelihood of 4%,
leaving plenty of space for other providers to fill.

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st3fan
If anyone is interested in figuring out how AirDrop works .. I registered
OpenAirDrop.org a long time ago. I would be happy to point it to a github
site.

~~~
gonzo
AirDrop uses mDNS and link-local ipv6

ifconfig shows that a new network interface called p2p[1-N] is created when
AirDrop is opened. For instance:

p2p1: flags=8843<UP,BROADCAST,RUNNING,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> mtu 1500 ether
12:9a:dd:a9:9f:1e inet6 fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e%p2p1 prefixlen 64 scopeid
0x8 media: autoselect status: active

Sniffing traffic on this interface shows mDNSv6 packets being sent to ff02::fd
port 5353. Containing the strings "_airdrop", your machine name and so on.

sudo tcpdump -ni p2p1 Password: tcpdump: WARNING: p2p1: no IPv4 address
assigned tcpdump: verbose output suppressed, use -v or -vv for full protocol
decode listening on p2p1, link-type EN10MB (Ethernet), capture size 65535
bytes 01:56:41.647582 IP6 fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e.5353 > ff02::fb.5353: 0
_\- [0q] 6/0/3 (Cache flush) SRV MacBook-Air.local.:57829 0 0, (Cache flush)
TXT "cname=MacBook Air" "phash=MvwrscY0f8Bc5+f5vR+ncIthkl8=", PTR
_airdrop._tcp.local., PTR ea4be4d626af._airdrop._tcp.local., (Cache flush) PTR
MacBook-Air.local., (Cache flush) AAAA fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e (365)
01:56:41.647657 IP6 fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e > ff02::fb: frag (0|1232) 5353 >
5353: 0_\- [0q] 1/0/0 (Cache flush) NULL[|domain] 01:56:41.647675 IP6
fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e > ff02::fb: frag (1232|1232) 01:56:41.647686 IP6
fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e > ff02::fb: frag (2464|1232) 01:56:41.647698 IP6
fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e > ff02::fb: frag (3696|1232) 01:56:41.647704 IP6
fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e > ff02::fb: frag (4928|1232) 01:56:41.647710 IP6
fe80::109a:ddff:fea9:9f1e > ff02::fb: frag (6160|1050)

The MAC address of my Airport card in this machine is: 10:9a:dd:a9:9f:1e

Wikipedia says this about fe80::/10

fe80::/10 — Addresses in the link-local prefix are only valid and unique on a
single link. Within this prefix only one subnet is allocated (54 zero bits),
yielding an effective format of fe80::/64. The least significant 64 bits are
usually chosen as the interface hardware address constructed in modified
EUI-64 format. A link-local address is required on every IPv6-enabled
interface—in other words, applications may rely on the existence of a link-
local address even when there is no IPv6 routing. These addresses are
comparable to the auto-configuration addresses 169.254.0.0/16 of IPv4.

[edit] and for all of those who claim that AirDrop uses some proprietary mode
on the Airport card, read this:

[http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=2011091321364956...](http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20110913213649565)

And ask yourself how that supposition could possibly be true when AirDrop can
be made to work on Ethernet cards.

~~~
simonair
Thanks for your investigation. Regarding the proprietary mode Apple claims to
be required, I guess this mode allows an AirDrop link to be established
without disassociating from the (infrastructure mode) WiFi base station by
switching between the two links quickly enough. Obviously Ethernet has no such
limitation. Indeed, in my opinion, AirDrop is more useful over Ethernet than
WiFi.

~~~
gonzo
Multi-mode WiFi drivers became the norm less than 10 years ago. The trick here
may be getting all the devices involved in a given AirDrop session on the same
channel.

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p4lindromica
Isn't one of the main features of airdrop that it can work in the absence of a
network by creating its own adhoc network? I believe that in order for this to
work when you ARE connected to a network, it rapidly switches the NIC between
the two networks. Making airdrop "open" doesn't mean that any computer can
make use of the protocol.

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grk
Airdrop is not a Dropbox competitor, it's a replacement for t he 'public
folder/drop box' feature of OS X.

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rchowe
AirDrop is great at college: most people have macs where I go to school and
don't know what fileshares are. "go to this icon in your sidebar and press
accept" is much easier than putting it on a fileshare.

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jyap
The author took the link down.

