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There are some tools that I just cannot live without; my biggest gripe with these tools that there are several of them, and I really want them all to be integrated. Amazon just took a giant leap forward in this realm for me, one step closer to getting everything where I want it.
See, it’s all about the cloud and your access to it.
Currently, I use iTunes to play music (because I am a heavy iPhone/iPad user). I use Dropbox to sync my files amongst all my computers (but it’s expensive to use for much, so I use the low level, free version). I use Google Docs to write documents/spreadsheets (although I hate the word processor interface, and their spreadsheet is missing tons of functionality that I use all the time at work). I also subscribe to me.com to keep my mac hardware all synced up.
Today, Amazon announced their cloud drive and cloud player services. Basically, you get 5 gigs of storage space for free for anything you want to store. If you buy an mp3 album from their store, you’ll get bumped up to the 20 gig level for free. After that, it’s a dollar per year per gig of storage. So let’s look at my usage of tools in light of Amazon’s announcement.
- Dropbox for storage: Currently free for me for 2 gigs of storage, so I have to be selective on what I store there. If I want 50 gigs? Yeah, that’s 120 bucks a year. With Amazon? 20 gigs for free, and $50 for 50 gigs per year. That’s a no brainer for me price-wise. Will I still use Dropbox? Yes, because Amazon is missing one very key feature for me: Dropbox becomes part of my file system, so I can read/write to it from all of my computers like I can any other file without having to use a special application to do so. But any files of significant size? Yeah, those are going to Amazon. Added bonus? I am ditching my 37Signals backpack account. I only had important documents stored there anyways. As soon as Amazon has a file system add on, I am closing my Dropbox account.
- Google Docs: I used Google Docs mostly because it was a way of having all my documents searchable in one place and it doesn’t matter if I am on my work PC or my Mac, the word processor and spreadsheet app is the same. Amazon gets me half way there, I can store all my documents, but Google search still dominates, and I am still left to use different tools for editing on different machines. I will continue to use Google Docs. For now. It wouldn’t surprise me, however, if Amazon soon has a tool to make editing of your online documents possible.
- Music via iTunes: This is where Amazon *almost* has me sold. The idea that I could free up TONS of space on my computer at home (around 40 gigs in music alone…there are also movies out there) just gets me excited. But the fact that I cannot listen on my iPhone/iPad? That’s not cool. I can’t stream that to my Roku? Yeah, that’s not cool either. As soon as I can integrate that music with my iDevices and stream them to my TV at home? Yeah, I will probably ditch iTunes altogether. Apple, do you hear that? Better hurry it up with your cloud solutions.
- Finally, me.com. The only reason I have this is to sync all my mac software. And I may be able to deal with just the google contacts/calendar integration enough to dump me.com. I’ll give it another year, but if Amazon/Google really build up these offerings, you can kiss my subscription to me.com goodbye as well.
So to me the Amazon is exciting news in the right direction, and it gets me excited. It’s very close to a solution that I could really use, it just needs a few more hooks into my operating systems, a little more connection into my devices and a few more features, and I will be able to consolidate what I use and how I keep important things safe.
Related articles
- Amazon Cloud Player Doesn’t Work On iOS – But It’s Not A Flash Issue (macstories.net)
- Amazon launches ‘cloud locker’ music service (tuaw.com)
- Amazon launches cloud storage, music service (macworld.com)
