Changing Global Perspective

So about July of 2011, I decided that with the coming iCloud that my needs for information management would need to be seriously analyzed. I was greatly awaiting the iCloud as I had been using MobileMe for a couple years and only thought that iCloud was additional services to MobileMe; it was not, in fact it was quite the opposite and with the removal of iDisk and the Gallery I was greatly disappoint. As such I began to look at everything out there from Google, Yahoo!, Windows Live, iCloud, Amazon, Dropbox, and more. I spent months playing with each service to come up with the best one; or in this case the one that best suited my needs. A week ago I came to the conclusion that a table would be needed to put this all into perspective.

I still have an iPhone 4 that I ran out of my 2-year contract back in December but I am just not motivated by anything that is out there right now that is available. I do know that I am very interested in a Windows 7.5 phone but I do not want one only to be stuck in it for 6 months and then Windows 8 phones come out. I will wait till Fall of this year to decide from the news; which is of itself a feat for me to go that long in a phone (iPhone 4).

Update: recently Intel-based cellphones have been released in Europe and show huge promise over ARM-based phones.

A little background on this table:

• Contacts: I just needed somewhere that it was easy to store them as needed.
• Calendar: I needed to be able to subscribe to a calendar through the websites and have it sync to my phone, if that did not happen it didn’t get a full mark but a slash.
• Photos: Yeah a pretty interface would be nice but realistically if I can store they files in its original format and access it easy then I am satisfied.
• Documents: There is the storage of the files and then online editing.
• File Storage: A number will represent the amount of online space.
• File Sync: An ability to sync files across multiple PCs.
• To-Do Lists: Can I create multiple lists. If not, no credit here.

***As with any review, this is significant to my needs and very subjective to my tastes. I’m sure others have their opinions and as such, this is mine.

As you can see from the table that Windows Live holds the most features which surprised me.

VS.

1. Yahoo! is a timeless classic, if you like getting spammed all day this one is great; in fact I think the only good thing ever about Yahoo! was the chatrooms back in the day, about late 1990s. Yahoo! allows for email, contact sync, multiple calendars and to-do lists. No file storage here at all, but they do have Flickr! with unlimited file storage but there’s a monthly cap on how much you can upload to it(something like 500mb).

2. iCloud…Oh how I am disappointed with you. What a strip tease only to wake up the next morning sober trying to chew your arm off. The file storage was the biggest disappointment to me. Granted I love the native document editing (if you spend the $30 for pages, numbers, and keynotes), but the fact that your files are then stored by the TYPE of document in each app with no online web app to edit the documents and no folder syncing of documents in each app. I have too many documents and prefer to store them by folders, all together (not by type) and by what the documents represent. Wait, don’t most people? Maybe I am odd, maybe the truth is everyone else actually look at all their files and say, “oh these are spreadsheets I should put them in a spreadsheet folder.” where as I say, “oh these are word and spreadsheet documents for project X they go in this folder.” The removal of the MobileMe gallery was another hard hit for me. I enjoyed it greatly. Killed.

3. Google…Man the potential is there but if I, the end consumer, do not have an Android device, its stale cookies for me? The only knock I really have is Picasa is limited to 1gb free and you only get one to-do list and your main calendar, if you are on an Android device then you get them all. Yay? Yeah I get it, it builds product loyalty? or mocks me for being stuck in a 2 year contract on a phone that I started using before these services came out? Oh well. I also want to add that there is two ways to sync to Google. The first is as an Exchange account which gives you: mail, contacts, and 1 calendar. The second is the “gmail” option and this gives you: mail, all calendars, and to-do lists. Again, they really limit you here.

4. Windows Live. I wont say that it is the prettiest (because I feel Google has the cleanest interface when set to “cozy”) but I was surprised to see how well everything worked on their system and with my iPhone. I went from splitting usage with iCloud and Google down to just only Windows Live. I could create multiple calendars and to-do lists (which for Windows Live are the same thing) You can create events and tasks that go on to a calendar but in iPhone it sees each calendar as a to-do list as well, so plan accordingly. I can sync files from one PC to another like dropbox does as well and i get 5gb free as apposed to 2gb free with dropbox. Added you also get 25gb of online storage for photos, documents, files, and more which is separate from the file syncing with Windows Live Mesh. Only limitation I have found is files are limited to 4gb and people online think its a conspiracy to prevent piracy, but did anyone stop to think that a FAT32 drive cannot store files bigger than 4gb? You have to be on NTFS to get larger than 4gb files stored. Oh wait, maybe that IS the conspiracy, they use FAT32 so you cant use it for piracy…hmmm… Quick recap on what is offered: mail, contacts, all calendars, all to-do lists, file storage and access (skydrive app).

Conclusion? I use Windows Live, even for my iPhone. I feel it provides the full suite of services I need for cloud storage. I can get my data from my phone and computer to one place, I do not need multiple websites to get to it all. I’m not looking for something fancy for my pictures, granted I miss MobileMe and that I could in a few clicks order the pictures printed in a “scrapbook” and mailed to me, but if I need that one day I’ll go find it, but for now I just need cloud storage so I do not lose anything.

Any questions or comments, please email me. I’ll try to address them in this article in a revision or by reply.