How Dropbox Will Remake Itself (And Your Angry Birds)
Dropbox wants to be your always-on hard drive, whether you're using an iPad, an Android phone, or a PC. And if it's going to reach that lofty goal, it will need more than a little help from the world's software developers.
Context & Ripple Effects
Dropbox’s cross-platform ambitions began with its Android app and mobile API, giving iPad users cloud synchronization alongside Android support. By late 2011, that synchronization layer had become a direct competitive front with Apple’s iCloud.
The service’s push to enlist developers extends the product from file sync toward an application layer: Dropbox is seeking to make stored data available across the devices where users run those apps.
First-order effects
- Software developers can use Dropbox’s cross-device storage layer rather than treating each device’s copy of an app’s data as separate.
- Dropbox gains a route to make its service more integral to apps on iPad, Android, and PCs, rather than competing only as a standalone file-sync destination.
Second-order effects
- Apple’s iCloud faces stronger pressure to demonstrate that its own sync tools can serve developers whose apps span Apple and non-Apple devices.
- Developers building games and other multi-device software gain an incentive to favor storage services that reduce the work of maintaining separate synchronization systems.
Third-order effects
- If developers adopt shared cloud storage as an app component, consumer storage providers will compete less on raw file access and more on the APIs and device reach that keep application data portable.
- The shift would make the developer ecosystem a key gatekeeper for consumer cloud-storage services, alongside the operating-system vendors that control device platforms.
The trend: Cloud storage is evolving from a destination for files into a cross-device service layer that developers can build into applications.