You are able to remember a undeniable, somewhat anticipated cloud service finally coming in to land in recent days. That wasn't the sole news in nebular computing last week, however: perhaps in anticipation of Google's long-rumored Drive service, Microsoft made some updates to the Windows Phone app for its own offering, SkyDrive. This comes not long after the discharge of desktop SkyDrive applications for Windows and OSX, all suggesting that Redmond's hoping to chop itself as large a slice of the cloud-storage pie because it can, preferably while others are still taking their seats on the table. We spent your time with the newest quiver of tools from Microsoft, to determine how they've progressed.
As SkyDrive already has some level of maturity, you'd hope that that suggests a comparatively solid foundation of features, and you would be largely right. Microsoft's been sharp enough to understand from the beginning that folks can't always -- or just do not need to -- buy into a full ecosystem. So, while integration is undoubtedly best with Windows-based platforms, traditionally the whole gamut of essential features can be found whichever device you may have your hands on on the time.
Getting started is as easy as signing up for a Live account. If truth be told, it really is precisely the sign-up process, because the two accounts are inextricably linked. Once you've squared that away, 7GB of free online storage is yours forever (subject to no dramatic u-turns someday.) The pointy-eyed among you've spotted that it really is greater than Google Drive, Apple and Dropbox are offering for his or her entry-level accounts. Some lucky folk could have snagged themselves 25GB of storage in reward for his or her early adoption, but alas, that ship has now sailed.
If the 7GB well isn't as deep as you need, there are naturally upgrade options, and it truly is another area wherein Microsoft nudges various inches ahead. For just $10 a year you may bag an extra 20GB space, and for the information hogs 50GB and 100GB accounts also are on offer ($25 and $50, respectively.) To position these prices in perspective, Apple wants four times as much per year for 20GB and Google will take nearly 3 times the quantity Redmond charges for a similar. We already broke down the competing services and their prices in our comparison chart with a purpose to see them side by side.
In case your main concern is less about how much, and more about what you are able to store, then luckily SkyDrive seems to open its arms to essentially any file you have to send at it. From the net interface, it's quite often just similar to attaching a file to an email. Batch uploads work a charm, and you're advised of progress of every as they go.
You can even create documents from inside the browser, letting you're employed on a Word, Excel, PowerPoint or OneNote file directly on your space for storing. A neat little extra if, perhaps, your on a further machine, and wish something up quick.
Browser interface 
If you have ever used Hotmail / MSN Live -- and to be able to be the case for a lot of of you -- you will be in familiar territory. Mainly because, as we stated earlier, it's actually all portion of a similar overarching service. Whether you would like email or not, you're going to get an address and inbox if you create your account.
The primary menu options continue to exist the left-hand side, and encompass Files, Recent Docs, Shared and Computers. They're largely self-explanatory, with that last option displaying any Windows machines on which you've installed a consumer application. Along the end is where one can dive out of SkyDrive and into Live mail and Messenger, with the "create document" options laid out below this. The majority of the screen space is assigned to displaying your files, and is undemanding enough, leaving just the best-hand column which houses a Bing-powered search and extended file options (move, copy, rename etc.) which may even be accessed with an excellent old skool right click.
Sharing is something that SkyDrive means that you can do without problems throughout the web interface, with options to make the file public (complete with an instantaneous link,) in addition to grant recipients editing or viewing-only privileges. With a purpose to make things much more public, a smattering of social media options are included by default (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn,) with many more ready to be added in the event you wish.
There's nothing too complicated occurring here, and everything is pretty fool-proof. The upload size limit is 300MB, so you need among the many desktop clients as a way to move something more chunky. Our only minor niggle, is that SkyDrive takes it upon itself to compress your photos as they upload. We uploaded a diffusion of shots, and a 1.2MB original got crushed all the way down to 383KB; even if choosing the "view original" option, you get the smaller file. On further inspection, it kind of feels there's an technique to "un-tick" because the files are uploading -- a feature with a view to make sure the original finds its technique to your drive. Still, you ought to be for your guard for that: in case you miss it, you may be stuck with the smaller file.
Desktop appsBeyond the browser, SkyDrive offers a number of other desktop tools designed to aide your workflow. As an example, in case you didn't upload the file which you need, and feature installed the desktop client for PCs, you should use the "fetch" feature to dig it out and share it after the truth. There's a client for OS X too, nevertheless it requires you to be running Lion for it to work, if you want to undoubtedly frustrate some curious and never up-to-date Mac owners. What these clients also do, however, is show your SkyDrive as if it were a physical folder on your machine, which has the added effect of making any program with a save option effectively SkyDrive enabled.
Much like other cloud solutions, the desktop app lets you drag and drop files to the virtual folder, and then goes off and automatically uploads it to the remote server. This also means you can work on a document, save to SkyDrive after a few changes, and always have the latest version online.
The Windows app is compatible with Vista, Windows 7 and forthcoming 8, so XP hold-outs will be restricted to the browser. The same is true for those still running OS X Snow Leopard and below. Linux and other desktop operating systems will also need to rely on the web interface if they wish to use the service.
Windows PhoneWe imagine the integration of SkyDrive on Microsoft's mobile operating system ranks pretty high on the list of things Redmond felt compelled to make awesome. To that end, the mobile app recently got an update that brought new functionality with it, so we took a fresh look to see how it feels over all.
The interface itself is much like what you'd expect from a native app. The look and feel is consistent with the rest of the standard applications, complete with smooth transitions and minimal clutter. The three mains screens echo the main views of the web-interface (Files, Recent and Shared,) with only the "computers" option omitted. Under the Files screen (where you'll spend most of your time,) a tiled or list view presents your files to you in a tidy fashion.
Audio files can be played directly from the app, but there's no option to download them directly should you wish to save them for later. You can always share them with yourself, via an email link or what have you, but that's a work around at best, rather than a feature. The same goes for video files, where frustratingly a download menu does appear, but in our tests with both a .mov and a .mp4 file remained greyed out. One up side is that video files don't appear to get compressed by default like their static-image relatives, with the files we uploaded showing as the same size once completely in the cloud.
Text documents, such as Word files also don't have a simple "download to phone" option, but you can edit, as well as save directly from the app. Where as PDF files are just a straight read-only affair, which isn't surprising.
Going in the other direction is a little bit more restrictive. Prod the plus symbol at the bottom of the app, and you'll be whisked to a set of folders you can choose files from. Hint: images, videos or nothing. You can poke the camera button, and take a snap there and then to share, but video mode is disabled meaning movie shares are a no go when working from within the app. You can, however, go into the camera separately, record a video and share it to SkyDrive from there, so it's unclear why video is excluded from the in-app process.
Other platformsUsers of iOS get their own bonafide SkyDrive app which gives you much of the same features as the Windows Phone app: file browsing, in-app media playing and so forth. Adding files can also be done from within the app, but again, as you can imagine, iOS's slightly restrictive approach to file management limits this to images and videos from the camera roll, or those shot from within the app (and yes, this time video too.) Unsurprisingly, SkyDrive doesn't appear as one of the default choices under the share menu in iOS, this remains locked down to the usual Apple-approved options.
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Android fans get a bit of a rougher deal. At this time there's no official app for Google's mobile platform, but that's not to say you're totally devoid of options. Thanks to a dedicated API, devs are given the tools to build SkyDrive functionality into apps, and there are a couple options out there already. One example is Browser for SkyDrive, which as the name suggests, lets you scuttle around your online vault in more or less the same manner as an official app might, and in some ways, offers a little more (full download of any file for example.)
Another option is Microsoft's OneNote app for Android, which has a little SkyDrive magic baked into it. From here you can create notes and simple text files, which you can then bounce as much as the cloud easily enough.
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Microsoft's cloud offering is a without doubt a confident one. Simple to use, essential features and, perhaps crucially, good value storage options let you know that this is a product born from a company with more than a little experience in consumer products. The interface may not be all that snazzy, and some of the app support for non-Windows platforms is a little spotty, but the end product still manages to reach far beyond its PC and phone ecosystem.
While these small blemishes don't massively detract from the overall experience, if Redmond were to eliminate them and make the experience universally consistent, then Microsoft could be poised to corner off a reasonable slice of the market. We'd love it even more in the event that they bought back the free 25GB option, but we aren't holding our breath on that one.
From WhatNewsToday.net
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