Roundup of Cloud Apps for Android

One of my favourite topics, as I’ve done similar articles in the past.

What I won’t do is go specifically into each of the apps, but let you know your options, and give some of my brief thoughts on each, letting you try out on your own.

I love my cloud, but look at all these options

First, let me do something I tried on a previous blog post, which is embed a google doc I’ve compiled showing off the basic comparisons.  Again, if the embed doesn’t work, click the link here.

[gave gold, silver and bronze to the cost per year per each GB – as a way to try to compare apples to apples]

So, there’s my options that I’ve tested out.  Here’s a little more info on each:

Asus Webstorage

This came built into my Transformer Tablet, and I thought I’d give it a whirl.  It’s basic.  If you didn’t have anything before, you’re not missing out on much.  You get the basic 1GB of space.

I’ll admit I haven’t really played with it as thoroughly as I should.

Box.net

Okay, so I just missed the freebie 50GB for Sony Xperia users, having just sent back the demo unit of the Pro I had (and LG just announced they’re now doing it too).  Ah well.  It’s a pretty nice UI, and smooth experience.  Decent amount of space as well, but no option to build more freely, so if you want more, you’ve got to buy it.

Dropbox

By far the most popular cloud storage option out there.  What makes this the killer app is the desktop software.  Drag files to the db folder and it’ll appear across the services.  Same in Android, you can ‘share’ the file to dropbox and have access anywhere.  Often I use it to grab files I worked on, or found from my computer and then need it on my phone.  I’ll make sure it’s in dropbox and then access it from the mobile.

You start off with free on a mediocre amount, but through some initiatives you can get more free.  [*ahem* I have a link below].

Google Docs

By far one of my favourite apps all around.  I’m starting to really incorporate its use, not only in my personal and hobby, but some of my professional aspects.  It’s simple to use, and easy to implement.

The biggest feature is that for Docs format files, they take up NO space on the cloud account.  If you save a non-Docs file, then it bites into the 1GB limit you have.  What would be neat is to have a listing from Google somehow to see which files take up space and which don’t [I can’t find out an easy way right now… as some PDFs are in the converted, some aren’t; it’s not quite clear].  However, buying extra space is the cheapest option of all the choices I’ll show today.  $5 for a whole year, and you get 20GB.  Definitely worth it.

The only thing I don’t like about it is that editing mobilely is not exactly friendly.  If you have a 3rd party program [e.g. QuickOffice, which I reviewed earlier, can do most of the editing] it will edit and re-upload the file.  Otherwise the mobile editor is pretty beat.  Nowhere near the quality of the web version.

Minus

Okay, this I loved early on because, hey, 10GB is 10GB… and free.  Gotta love free.  But as I started to dive in, I loved it more and more.

It takes some getting used to the ‘albums’ version as things get a folder, and there’s no ‘sub folders’.  You can upload a file to create a new folder, and then rename the folder (desktop only) as it will take on the name of the file you uploaded.  It also won’t let you move from folder to folder.  Minor annoyances, but I was surprised how quickly the support people were able to respond and help me figure out most of it pretty quickly.  So bonus points for your customer service guys!

After you figure it out, it’s a great program.  I love the drag and drop for the web app, and gallery viewing for public folders and you get great previews in the app itself.

Neat novel feature — the Chrome extension also includes a screen shot which will upload to a folder.  AND, you get Aviary editing on any photo you upload, should you want it; which is ultra handy!  It even has an auto-upload option for your photos (but it doesn’t seem to work for me).

So, go ahead and definitely give this a try.  I whole heartedly recommend it [*ahem* I have a link below to give yourself (and me) an extra 1GB of space].  Best of all, it’ll never cost you (but that means unless you get karmic points you’ll never increase beyond 10GB).

POGOPLUG

I put this hear, however, I’m not sure it really belongs, this tends to be only a media server, as you need to install the software and then access only those on your phone.  There was no option to upload from the phone to the cloud.  So I uninstalled quickly.

Did you try it and like it?  Let me know.

SkyDrive

I used to love my Hotmail services.  And I still do, I have a lot of nostalgia there, when I first started writing a blog with Live Writer, and stored photos and calendars, etc… into the cloud waay back when.  So I find myself hard pressed to unplug from Hotmail as I drift further to the Google end of the spectrum.  I’ve got a lot of photos in my photo album, I’m not sure how to bring over those photos.

You also get 25GB of space for any non-photo, non-office document.  Which is nothing to sneeze at.

Biggest issue here is that there’s no native Android app, you have to use something called SoRaMi to access it.

SpiderOak

Again, this is one of those apps that only allows you to back up files onto the cloud from your PC.  The app was confusing as all get out, so I didn’t really bother exploring the option on my PC.

SugarSync

Probably 2nd most popular cloud storage out there, if not tied with Dropbox.  Starts you off with a  pretty decent amount [more than Dropbox] and you can accelerate your space by +1/2GB for each referral [2x as Dropbox].

Now, each referral only counts IF they install the software as well.  I’m not a big fan of installing the software, and many of the people I had sign up, only signed up to access the photos I shared with them, so didn’t install.  That’s another thing to talk about – sharing isn’t as simple to ‘non-users’.  Something I have to take into consideration.

But, what is great is that it’s easy to set up a folder on your device as an ‘auto-sync’ so that it’s the same on your phone and computer.  For me, I do a lot of screenshots on my phone, and it’s nice to do the screenshot and then go and write an article and it’s on the computer [or on the web] usually pretty instantaneously.  Same goes for the mobile photos… you can set it up to automatically upload to your mobile photo folder.

ZeroPC

With only 1GB to start you off, it’s hardly a contender in this ring, but what’s really good is that you ‘plug in’ your other cloud storages to it, and you can access all (well some of these in this list).

Definitely a cool feature.  However, the big issue comes in that instead of paying for space you can access, you pay for your bandwidth to access ANY of your storage drives.  Hrm… a little leery, so I steered clear of it.

QUICKOFFICE

Now, I know this probably doesn’t belong here, but I had to throw it in.  I was so impressed how it linked with your storage drive options it most deserved to be here.  Just go look at my review of it recently.

Okay, so enough from me; I was hoping to throw some photos in of each app, but… you know, I’ve done that before.  This was meant as just a comparison of my thoughts and feelings and to list your options.  And I’ve run out of time… gotta jet.

Let me know your thoughts on these services – and if there was any I missed [wuala was one I had reviewed in the past, but was never fond of].