These are definitely the two main services for cloud syncing on iOS, but which is better for music making? I personally use Dropbox and have only once found myself using iCloud in a non-Apple app, and it wasn’t even for music; I don’t know even of any music apps that supported it. I’ve heard that the implementation of iCloud can be very complicated, so that may be one reason as to why we’re not seeing it in many apps. Another may be that this whole cloud movement is still catching on. Whatever the reason, I hope that at some point in the future more apps add iCloud support for a few reasons:
All your content on all of your devices
When I first upgraded to iOS 5 and started seeing all of the photos I took on my iPhone appear on my iPad, I was pretty annoyed. But after after opening up to the idea and thinking about how it could be of use to me, I quickly became a huge fan. Having all of your files synced to all of your devices could be extremely useful, especially in apps like NanoStudio or BeatMaker because they’re used to create pieces of music, which is something that you work on, and therefore could benefit from always having with you. I think that most people aren’t very fond of iCloud yet because it hasn’t been implemented in any apps that they use to create with. Say you put down a beat with some app on your iPad and later, on your bus ride home from work, you want to add a bass line over it from your iPhone but can’t because you didn’t sync it to Dropbox or email it to yourself. If you own an iPhone and an iPad and create with both, you can’t tell me you haven’t been there! With iCloud, you wouldn’t even have to do anything! Which brings me to my next point…
Automatic syncing
This isn’t as much a matter of convenience as it is a way to save your music from potentially getting lost forever. As creators, this something that we fear more than anything, and automatic syncing with iCloud is the perfect solution. You’d never forget to backup your projects because you wouldn’t have to! If you’ve ever lost music that you were in the process of making, you know exactly where I’m coming from, but if you haven’t, I strongly suggest that you hop on board before it’s too late!
That being said, I don’t think Dropbox is the worst service in the world. In fact, I really like it. You can easily share your files with others, refer new users to get free space, and most of all: your files are synced to a directory on Dropbox.com so you can access them on anything, not just on the devices that have the apps you created in installed. I just think that iCloud’s auto syncing feature looks too good to pass up, especially for creators on iOS or Mac who need their files securely saved. Apple might have something in store for making them more accessible on different devices, but they’re probably just going to waiting for more developers to make Mac App Store versions so that iOS and OS X apps will sync on all of their computers. So until we start seeing iCloud more on iOS, Dropbox will have to do…
If for some reason you’re not using Dropbox and would like to sign up, doing so with this link will score us both an extra 500 MB!
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Personally I’m not much of a fan of public cloud options. I have and use Dropbox, Evernote, box and iCloud, but I don’t put anything really important on my storage. Instead I use a pogoplug primarily, the drive is always available to me wherever I am, much like a traditional cloud server, but my drive is located at my house. I have a 250gb drive that I use, but I could easily upgrade if I need to. I paid 20$ for my pogoplug, and to me it’s totally worth buying my own drives. I can just unplug my drive if I’m ever unsure about my passwords being insecure, or if I have any intrusion notifications on my home network. Nobody notifies me if someone tries to hack into Dropbox. I am not confident that cloud services are totally bulletproof at this current venture, and I have things that I need to store that I would be devastated if those files were compromised by nefarious groups. Nowadays I use a quadruple redundant system for backing things up, I think I’m about at 10tb at home now.
Your point is extremely valid, loosing data is horrible and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I lost a 160gb drive many years ago that was my only copy of my audio projects. It was years of work, gone. I would like to think I have learned from my mistakes. But, just as bad, I have also had my work plagiarized by someone who figured out a password on a server I kept projects on. Finding your uncompleted works taken and used by someone else is not fun to deal with. Or even straight up, unmodified audio files posted by someone else signed and published by them. Because of this, I always determine weather or not I would be bothered if a file were to be compromised before I upload to cloud services. For me Dropbox is just backups of pictures of my dog and stuff that clutters my desktop, musically I just store many of my generic sample libraries.
But I will follow your link to get you 500 more mb.
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As you said, iCloud shines in particular with universal apps like NanoStudio and BeatMaker where you probably want your samples, synth patches and projects synced across multiple iOS devices. iCloud is meant to be invisible and effortless like that.
Dropbox is better as a cloud-based file system you can directly interact with. I keep my samples in my Dropbox and open them in Hokusai, from which I can copy and paste them into any other music app that supports that.
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I agree, %100, it’s just that right now (I personally) would like to see an automatic syncing service on iOS. If Dropbox updated it’s SDK and added automatic syncing, I would just use Dropbox but if iCloud was supported by more apps and more apps had “Open In…” or AudioCopy, I would use iCloud.
You’re point is such a curtail part of computing that it’ll probably keep many users on Dropbox- at least until more apps get “Open In…” ( http://www.iosmusician.com/2012/06/list-of-ios-music-apps-that-support-open-in-for-audio-files.html ) or audio copy. Also, as always, there are going to be the large part of people who don’t want to conform to apples new ways. Either way, as i said in the article, i think apple is just waiting for more developers to start using their services: iCloud for backing up- “Open In…” for app-to-app sharing because if all your apps had those you probably wouldn’t really need Dropbox- meaning you could get things done either way, which way is up to you ;D and also, this is all just my opinion
It also possibly leads to another Apple theory that they don’t believe in file/folder systems, and think that everything just just be based inside of apps- if you want to use a file in another app, there would be a function in the app that would allow you to open it inside of the other app… This sounds like a totally bizarre idea b/c directory systems have been around forever; but who knows? maybe they believe that these two things (apps and folders) should be combined (they certainly have on iOS, which is a mobile platform, but still…) OS X lion already started on this by hiding the ~/Library by default, this might be the start of their transition… //again this is all just my opinion
sean
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