nerdcast

Save us Dropbox, You’re Our Only Hope.

So you hear about this iPad thingie? Pretty slick, I’d say.

But would you really be able to use a netbook-esque tablet computer with only 16GB of storage space? One could argue that because of iPhone OS’s simple file structure or seemingly locked down nature that it would be rather simple to maintain space. I however, would argue that you’re just being silly.

(This is where I say that goofy overused first line of a paragraph where I get into the main thought of this article)

Enter Dropbox. As you should already know, Dropbox is this delicious application that lets you sync files across multiple computers and even the cloud. On you PC or Mac, it looks like a simple folder on our desktop or anywhere else. You drop a photo into that folder, and it will instantly sync to your desktop upstairs or any other computer with Dropbox installed. Killer, right? This is all free if you plan on using only 2GB of space.

It gets even better. They have an iPhone app version of their software. It gives you access to everything you store whether it be video, audio and pdf files. You can even peruse your photo collection. Android and Blackberry apps are in the works.

About a month ago I decided to upgrade to one of their Pro options. 50GB for $10/month. I moved my entire music collection into Dropbox, and have slowly started moving my photos into it as well. It works just swell on my Windows 7 box, because when I added my collection from my Mac into the folder, my Zune software on Windows 7 automatically installed it into its library. Easy wireless syncing to my Zune HD, neerrrrrddddd!

But enough about outdated laptop and desktop computers, they’re essentially like cassette players now.

Right out of the box, iPad will be able to utilize Dropbox using its existing app. All of my music and movies will be able to stream right to iPad. Booyah! My own personal media player without storing ANY of the files on the actual iPad itself. I can stream Casino while downing a bag of cheesy poofs on the couch until I keep over. Sure, I could do that with the iPhone, but you get the idea. It’s a bigger screen, son!

So thanks to Dropbox, we don’t need to worry about 16GB on iPad. If they *really* wanted to blow everyones socks off, though, they’d would add some general media player capabilities to the app itself. Playing a movie is great because it’s just one standalone file. Music is handcuffed because of the same reasons. If I want to listen to multiple songs(files), I need to fire them up after they finish. Lame.

Dropbox, if you add even the most barebones of media player options, you will belt brains.

Brains!