4 ms·

The Dropbox iPhone App is Out

154 points by jmonegro 17y ago

novum 17y ago
Note: it requires iPhone OS 3.1. If you're like me, and you've been holding onto 3.0.1 because it allows you to tether, you're out of luck. Unless there's a material reason to require 3.1, I really hope they drop it down to 3.0x. Comments on the blog announcement seem to show a lot of people in the same boat.
- jwilliams 17y ago
  Drea discusses 3.1 here: http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293 http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293
  - nfriedly 17y ago
    It looks like they've (temporarily?) disabled the comments. Do you happen to have a cached copy of what he said?
    - santry 17y ago
      > Under 3.0.1 if you record video from within the Dropbox app that video couldn't be saved to your iPhone photos directory, so if your upload was interrupted for any reason the video would be lost.
mmelin 17y ago
Awesome, and free too. $9.95/mo now feels like a bargain.
arashf 17y ago
digg us please? ;-) http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_iPhone_app_finally_released http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_iPhone_app_finally_released
bigwill 17y ago
Finally, my baby is born! We'd love it if you could Digg this article too!!
- kvogt 17y ago
  is the mother drew or arash?
- cubicle67 17y ago
  Excellent job Quick request re viewable file types - The app correctly recognises .h files as C, and lets me view them, but not .m files. Would it be possible to add .m files as well?
  - Osmose 17y ago
    I have a similar request, but for viewing .asm files as assembly code. Perhaps the option to view unknown files as plaintext?
- poshj 17y ago
  You should create a new plan geared toward people who use it mainly in their iphone. I can see something like this: "Pro iPhone 16 for $3.99 per month" I'm sure gonna be your first customer for this plan :)
pclark 17y ago
bloody well executed. love the tutorial that first loads up as a pdf.
chriskelley 17y ago
Congrats guys, I finally upgraded myself to a pro account just this morning.
joez 17y ago
Great job. How was the approval process? I noticed that you are lacking some of the functionality available at getdropbox.com. A quick suggestion is to have a link available from the settings panel. Also, put up your referral program! Have a button for that: "Invite a friend, get 250 MB"
harpastum 17y ago
This just kicked out iTunes Remote from its position in my "bottom 4." Great viewer that can read a LOT of different formats (pdf, doc, docx, ppt, xls, html, rtf, mp3, mov, mp4, etc [1]). Interesting 'Favorites' category. This is basically a better version of dropbox (previews are actually faster than downloading and opening different apps). Just......awesome. [1] https://www.getdropbox.com/help/80 https://www.getdropbox.com/help/80 (supported formats list)
vikram 17y ago
excellent work. love it. Like the favorite feature. works really smoothly.
colbyolson 17y ago
The app works simply and beautifully. Reminds me of their web-client. A perfect extension of their services. I don't think I could ask for anything else. Thanks DropBox.
maxklein 17y ago
While iTunes was loading, I was wondering if the app would be paid or free. I started calculating mentally, what I would do if the app was paid - thought, okay, for 99cents I'd get it. On reflection, I'd get it for 9.99, but I'd post a nasty HN comment about them. For 19.90, I'd have said no way. By this time, it had loaded, and I saw it was free. I was like - these dudes are pretty good dudes. Free, yarr? Nice!
- maxklein 17y ago
  And then my iTunes popped up and told me that 3.0 was not a high enough version. C'mon dudes, jailbreaking is not that easy for the latest versions, I intentionally stay a version behind.
  - noodle 17y ago
    they didn't support 3.0 because of missing capability that caused problems.
    - maxklein 17y ago
      Like what? The 3.1 SDK did not bring much more in that an app like dropbox would need.
      - edd 17y ago
        "The choice to go with 3.1 was because of a limitation with 3.0.1. Under 3.0.1 if you record video from within the Dropbox app that video couldn't be saved to your iPhone photos directory, so if your upload was interrupted for any reason the video would be lost. With 3.1 we can save the video to your photos on the phone, so if the upload fails you still have a copy and can attempt to upload again. My apologies for the inconvenience, but when it comes to data loss, we always have to aim for the safest option." - http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293 http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293
- mr_dbr 17y ago
  Their plan seems to be, give stuff away for free, charge for more storage. I would have been surprised if they charged for the iPhone application..
anotherjesse 17y ago
Does this use your (soon to be public?) api? If so, any news on when it is going to be available?
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
blasdel 17y ago
When you say that it synchronizes the photos + videos on the iPhone, that includes ones taken using the iPhone's camera? How much latency would there be (minus actual transfer time) between capture and dropbox availability? Does it use the native push notification API for syncing photos + videos from Dropbox to the device?
ruby_roo 17y ago
For Apple users, how does this compare to MobileMe/iDisk (Apple provides a free iDisk app for iPhone)?
- intranation 17y ago
  It's free (unlike iDisk), and in my experience Dropbox sync on the desktop is a hell of a lot faster and smoother. Obviously it doesn't provide the other features MobileMe does, like syncing Preferences, KeyChains etc. But I'd be a very happy customer of MobileMe if iDisk worked as well as Dropbox does.
spicyj 17y ago
Wow, quite a wide range of available file types: http://www.getdropbox.com/help/80 http://www.getdropbox.com/help/80
- Gormo 17y ago
  These look like the file types natively supported by the iPhone.
mahmud 17y ago
Good software sells itself. Last night I had a bunch of musicians over and at some point they wanted to share their gig videos with some of the people there; I cracked my gf's laptop open and copied the video to My Dropbox folder, right clicked and copied the URL, then sent it to everyone. The audience had to do a double take, got of their seats and everyone leaned over the laptop to see me do it again. Instant AWE! I must have increased dropbox membership by 8 people last night :-)
- ajg1977 17y ago
  I hope you remembered to use referral links! 8x250mb = 2GB of extra space :)
comatose_kid 17y ago
Very nice! One feature request to add to the pile - it would be great if you could remember which page of a PDF I was last on.
roc 17y ago
Awesome app. Trying to thumb through PDFs hundreds of pages long has me thinking that it may finally be time for a 3GS. In the meantime, any chance of a 'go to page' button?
- mr_dbr 17y ago
  It'd also be nice if the scroll-position was saved when you close the application.. When you reopen the file, it's always back to page 1..
intranation 17y ago
As pointless as this post is, I have to say that Dropbox is one of my favourite applications around. It's truly the epitome of "Just Works". That said, I'd love it if they introduced a lower price plan—I want to give them money, but I don't need the big plan (I'm thinking more in the realm of $2/month for 5GB or something).
epe 17y ago
Awesome! Huge improvement over using the web client. One feature request, and I don't know if this is in line with your vision for the app, but it would be awesome if you could edit plain text files from within the app itself.

154 points by jmonegro 17y ago

novum 17y ago

Note: it requires iPhone OS 3.1. If you're like me, and you've been holding onto 3.0.1 because it allows you to tether, you're out of luck. Unless there's a material reason to require 3.1, I really hope they drop it down to 3.0x. Comments on the blog announcement seem to show a lot of people in the same boat.

jwilliams 17y ago
Drea discusses 3.1 here: http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293 http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293
- nfriedly 17y ago
  It looks like they've (temporarily?) disabled the comments. Do you happen to have a cached copy of what he said?
  - santry 17y ago
    > Under 3.0.1 if you record video from within the Dropbox app that video couldn't be saved to your iPhone photos directory, so if your upload was interrupted for any reason the video would be lost.

mmelin 17y ago

Awesome, and free too. $9.95/mo now feels like a bargain.

arashf 17y ago

digg us please? ;-) http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_iPhone_app_finally_released http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_iPhone_app_finally_released

bigwill 17y ago

Finally, my baby is born! We'd love it if you could Digg this article too!!

kvogt 17y ago
is the mother drew or arash?
cubicle67 17y ago
Excellent job Quick request re viewable file types - The app correctly recognises .h files as C, and lets me view them, but not .m files. Would it be possible to add .m files as well?
- Osmose 17y ago
  I have a similar request, but for viewing .asm files as assembly code. Perhaps the option to view unknown files as plaintext?
poshj 17y ago
You should create a new plan geared toward people who use it mainly in their iphone. I can see something like this: "Pro iPhone 16 for $3.99 per month" I'm sure gonna be your first customer for this plan :)

pclark 17y ago

bloody well executed. love the tutorial that first loads up as a pdf.

chriskelley 17y ago

Congrats guys, I finally upgraded myself to a pro account just this morning.

joez 17y ago

Great job. How was the approval process? I noticed that you are lacking some of the functionality available at getdropbox.com. A quick suggestion is to have a link available from the settings panel. Also, put up your referral program! Have a button for that: "Invite a friend, get 250 MB"

harpastum 17y ago

This just kicked out iTunes Remote from its position in my "bottom 4." Great viewer that can read a LOT of different formats (pdf, doc, docx, ppt, xls, html, rtf, mp3, mov, mp4, etc [1]). Interesting 'Favorites' category. This is basically a better version of dropbox (previews are actually faster than downloading and opening different apps). Just......awesome. [1] https://www.getdropbox.com/help/80 https://www.getdropbox.com/help/80 (supported formats list)

vikram 17y ago

excellent work. love it. Like the favorite feature. works really smoothly.

colbyolson 17y ago

The app works simply and beautifully. Reminds me of their web-client. A perfect extension of their services. I don't think I could ask for anything else. Thanks DropBox.

maxklein 17y ago

While iTunes was loading, I was wondering if the app would be paid or free. I started calculating mentally, what I would do if the app was paid - thought, okay, for 99cents I'd get it. On reflection, I'd get it for 9.99, but I'd post a nasty HN comment about them. For 19.90, I'd have said no way. By this time, it had loaded, and I saw it was free. I was like - these dudes are pretty good dudes. Free, yarr? Nice!

maxklein 17y ago
And then my iTunes popped up and told me that 3.0 was not a high enough version. C'mon dudes, jailbreaking is not that easy for the latest versions, I intentionally stay a version behind.
- noodle 17y ago
  they didn't support 3.0 because of missing capability that caused problems.
  - maxklein 17y ago
    Like what? The 3.1 SDK did not bring much more in that an app like dropbox would need.
    - edd 17y ago
      "The choice to go with 3.1 was because of a limitation with 3.0.1. Under 3.0.1 if you record video from within the Dropbox app that video couldn't be saved to your iPhone photos directory, so if your upload was interrupted for any reason the video would be lost. With 3.1 we can save the video to your photos on the phone, so if the upload fails you still have a copy and can attempt to upload again. My apologies for the inconvenience, but when it comes to data loss, we always have to aim for the safest option." - http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293 http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=102#comment-17809293
mr_dbr 17y ago
Their plan seems to be, give stuff away for free, charge for more storage. I would have been surprised if they charged for the iPhone application..

anotherjesse 17y ago

Does this use your (soon to be public?) api? If so, any news on when it is going to be available?

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

blasdel 17y ago

When you say that it synchronizes the photos + videos on the iPhone, that includes ones taken using the iPhone's camera? How much latency would there be (minus actual transfer time) between capture and dropbox availability? Does it use the native push notification API for syncing photos + videos from Dropbox to the device?

ruby_roo 17y ago

For Apple users, how does this compare to MobileMe/iDisk (Apple provides a free iDisk app for iPhone)?

intranation 17y ago
It's free (unlike iDisk), and in my experience Dropbox sync on the desktop is a hell of a lot faster and smoother. Obviously it doesn't provide the other features MobileMe does, like syncing Preferences, KeyChains etc. But I'd be a very happy customer of MobileMe if iDisk worked as well as Dropbox does.

spicyj 17y ago

Wow, quite a wide range of available file types: http://www.getdropbox.com/help/80 http://www.getdropbox.com/help/80

Gormo 17y ago
These look like the file types natively supported by the iPhone.

mahmud 17y ago

Good software sells itself. Last night I had a bunch of musicians over and at some point they wanted to share their gig videos with some of the people there; I cracked my gf's laptop open and copied the video to My Dropbox folder, right clicked and copied the URL, then sent it to everyone. The audience had to do a double take, got of their seats and everyone leaned over the laptop to see me do it again. Instant AWE! I must have increased dropbox membership by 8 people last night :-)

ajg1977 17y ago
I hope you remembered to use referral links! 8x250mb = 2GB of extra space :)

comatose_kid 17y ago

Very nice! One feature request to add to the pile - it would be great if you could remember which page of a PDF I was last on.

roc 17y ago

Awesome app. Trying to thumb through PDFs hundreds of pages long has me thinking that it may finally be time for a 3GS. In the meantime, any chance of a 'go to page' button?

mr_dbr 17y ago
It'd also be nice if the scroll-position was saved when you close the application.. When you reopen the file, it's always back to page 1..

intranation 17y ago

As pointless as this post is, I have to say that Dropbox is one of my favourite applications around. It's truly the epitome of "Just Works". That said, I'd love it if they introduced a lower price plan—I want to give them money, but I don't need the big plan (I'm thinking more in the realm of $2/month for 5GB or something).

epe 17y ago

Awesome! Huge improvement over using the web client. One feature request, and I don't know if this is in line with your vision for the app, but it would be awesome if you could edit plain text files from within the app itself.