BlackBerry apps

Blackberry Gemini - Dropbox has become a very popular service over the past few months due to its simple idea which leads to a thousand uses. If you haven’t used it before it is a cloud-based storage service that allows you to keep files on multiple machines with automatic syncing between each. Save something into your Dropbox folder on a PC and when you switch on your laptop it will be available. A free account gives you 2GB of storage and then you can pay for 50GB or 100GB options.

At the end of September last year Dropbox became even more useful with the introduction of an iPhone app. This allowed access to all the files in your Dropbox account, but also meant any images and video taken on your iPhone could be uploaded and automatically become accessible on your PC/Mac/laptop. Now it looks as though mobile functionality is being expanded to Android and BlackBerry.

A recent promotional e-mail sent out to Dropbox users highlighting the Dropbox for iPhone app contained the following sentence:

Do you own a Blackberry or Android phone? Don’t worry! We’ve got plenty more mobile magic coming soon!

If that wasn’t evidence enough that new Dropbox mobile apps are in the works a blog post from the Dropbox team confirms it. Each team member gave their resolutions for 2010 with employee Will stating:

I resolve to release some crazy new features for the iPhone app, and to begin poking my head around some other undisclosed projects.. coughANDROIDAPPcough

There’s also a vacancy for an Android Developer listed on the Dropbox jobs page.

Keep an eye on the Dropbox Blog for more information.

Matthew’s Opinion

Of all the cloud storage options available I use Dropbox the most mainly due to the flexibility it offers. A lot of services require you to be connected to the web in order to access your files, but Dropbox downloads a local copy so if your connection goes down you still have access and can update them on whichever machine is being worked on. Then when a connection is re-established an update is performed in the background.

Adding iPhone support last year meant it was much easier to access files anywhere. The ability to instantly make images and video available on a home PC or laptop for editing pushed the popularity of the service through the roof. The Dropbox team even won the Best Internet App of 2009 award.

With the popularity of Android growing fast among handset manufacturers it was inevitable Dropbox would need to add support. It’s also nice to see BlackBerry being considered. With the Symbian OS going open source I bet Nokia handsets are in line to get Dropbox at some point in the not too distant future too.