
Steve Jobs vowed to ‘kill’ Dropbox with iCloud - cedel2k1
http://www.itbusiness.ca/blog/steve-jobs-vowed-to-kill-dropbox-with-icloud/44881
======
veidr
I am repeating myself[1], but that premise just fundamentally doesn't make
sense. A huge part of dropbox's value proposition is that all your files are
on _all your devices_ (and available to all your apps on those devices).

Apple's vision was/is of a feature that only works on your Apple devices.
That's not the same thing at all, and isn't nearly as cool or groundbreaking.

[1]: [http://masonmark.com/why-icloud-cant-ever-be-as-good-as-
drop...](http://masonmark.com/why-icloud-cant-ever-be-as-good-as-dropbox/)

~~~
gnaffle
Apple would certainly like that future, but they've released iTunes and even a
limited form of iCloud on Windows that can sync calendars, contacts and
photos.

The main problem with iCloud is that they tried to do away with the
traditional file system and force sync integration at the app level, and they
tried oing this while still delivering an inferior solution compared to
Dropbox.

~~~
rodgerd
The point still holds: crappy, brain-dead versions of their competing service
for Windows, versus Dropbox which is on Android, Mac, Linux, and Windows.

------
danso
I'm conflicted...i love OS X, but Apple's other software efforts seem
profoundly directionless. I'll leave Siri and Maps out of this since heir
problems are more likely due to the data gap against Google (or is it whatever
software processes they're using to wrangle data?)... But a standout flop to
me is the App Store on iOS...I just don't get it...when I jump from a URL to a
store link, I'm taken to a modal in which if I accidentally tap outside, the
modal is gone and I have no way to get back to that app page except by
revisiting the browser again...modals are, I thought, typically used for quick
web transitions, not actual landing pages. But then the App Store itself is so
slow that speedy transitions are irrelevant...why is it that every action,
from scrolling to searching to clicking is so stuttering slow in an
application that is core to Apple's mobile dominance?

I've never developed for iOS but the many complaints about CoreData and my own
consumer experience with iCloud syncing doesn't give me much reason to think
iCloud will kill Dropbox by merit alone

~~~
quesera
CoreData tries to solve several problems. It solves most of them well, but
fails on others. Document-level iCloud sync (Dropbox equiv) works great.

But Dropbox also offers cross platform support and better web access for
arbitrary file formats, two things I don't think Apple has any interest
whatsoever in working on.

As for the App Store, I agree. The UI is often frustrating (web, iTunes, OSX
app, _and_ iOS app!), and the slowness is just incomprehensible. Been like
that for years, total mystery. It's also pathologically crashy on older iOS,
which I suspect is due to heavy use of UIWebViews. Still inexcusable.

------
macspoofing
And then he never actually tried to replicate the core features and use-cases
of Dropbox.

------
tedunangst
If you want to watch Steve Jobs call out Dropbox by name:
[http://www.apple.com/apple-events/wwdc-2011/](http://www.apple.com/apple-
events/wwdc-2011/) and skip to 1:22:15.

~~~
sjwright
Quote:

    
    
      "Now some people think that the cloud is
      just a hard disk in the sky. You take a
      bunch of stuff and you put it in your
      Dropbox or your iDisk or whatever, and
      then it transfers it up into the cloud
      and it stores it, and then you drag
      whatever you want back out on your other
      devices. We think it's way more than
      that -- and we call it iCloud."
    

All Steve is saying is he thinks they have a better idea for how the cloud
should work. I don't see anything remotely similar to "vowing to kill" any
particular service. I think his quote misunderstands the beautiful simplicity
of Dropbox, but that's about it.

Most charitably, you could argue that when Steve has previously said words to
the effect of "we think we've done something better," entire industries were
occasionally upturned. For the CEO of Dropbox, to hear that phraseology used
in their direction, I can imagine how they might interpret it that way.

~~~
Dogamondo
I didn't watch the video to see Jobs saying this, just reading from the parent
transcript, but can we be sure Jobs was actually referring to Dropbox here?
And not the default shared folder that ships with OS X called 'Dropbox'?
(Which many people had automated to back up dropped files to a remote server
in the past).

~~~
sjwright
Unlikely, as the built-in Drop Box isn't anything to do with cloud, it's just
a way to allow people to copy files onto a networked computer without
authentication.

------
devx
Steve Jobs vowed to kill a lot of stuff.

------
adamnemecek
Unlikely considering that I can't really see Apple releasing x-platform iCloud
clients.

~~~
Anechoic
The sad thing was that iDisk was cross-platform (with native Mac & Windows
clients, and since it was WebDAV, you could get Linux and *BSD to work with
it), but it died along with the rest of the iTools/.Mac/MobileMe suite of
services.

------
lalos
Dropbox's success depends on OS' file system representation. It's currently
the perfect solution for the folder/file system but new systems like iOS and
Android don't need a dropbox. I remember reading that Steve Jobs wanted to
abstract out the folder/file representation for a simpler and easier to use
iOS. They hide the files inside each app and it is all synchronized by iCloud.
Dropbox clearly is aware of this paradigm shift and that's why they are
pushing their new SDK and have a conference to promote Dropbox integration
with any other apps.

~~~
zaqokm
that sounds fine until you want to share data between applications as well as
people.

~~~
w1ntermute
Which is why it's not the case with Android. You can easily share files
between applications.

------
gwu78
Another article is posted to HN right now about cloud storage. It seems
significant but I guess it is not worthy of the front page: Tencent will
apparently be offering up to 10TB of free storage, hosted on servers outside
China.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759714](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6759714)

Will they be an Amazon S3 reseller like Dropbox? Amazon storage is expensive.
I do not know how Dropbox can compete with companies who build their own
datacenters.

~~~
bryanh
This assumes pricing is the primary thing that consumers chose by. Which isn't
true. Also, as storage costs decrease (and they will, of course), owning your
own datacenter isn't as big of an advantage in the long term.

------
kunai
Steve Jobs vowed to kill a lot of things, including Android. As in the words
of Larry Page,

"How's that working out for you?"

~~~
JanezStupar
Well knowing that on his deathbed, he gave "some advice" to Larry.

And seeing how Larry has been running his company. I will dare to say that it
is working out perfectly. Steve might be able to kill Google from beyond the
grave.

------
enscr
One of the coolest features of Dropbox is block-level sync. Works wonderfully
well with encrypted containers (not needing to upload the whole thing when you
change a file in the container). I know Google Drive & Skydrive don't have it.
Don't know about iCloud.

------
founder4fun
5 gigs for free with dropbox and icloud isn't enough.

I'm waiting for both companies to up their free storage offering, as Flickr
now offers 1 terabyte to back up your photos and videos.

~~~
rodgerd
Why do you think either of them want you as a customer? You clearly don't plan
on giving them any money.

------
JesseAldridge
Is there video of the interview anywhere?

