Promised back in March (but desired for much longer), the Android Dropbox app has finally come to completion and been released on the Android Market.
For the uninitiated, Dropbox is a sync service that flags a “watched” folder on any PC on which it is installed. Anything placed within the watched folder syncs to the cloud and to your other Dropbox installations. Uses for Dropbox might include file transfer between a laptop and desktop, sharing screenshots or pictures, or creating a central repository of files to be accessed by multiple users. With an Android app, you can now add files on the go from your phone, view or download things that are stored in your Dropbox and send links to files in your account to other users.
Using Dropbox for Android
As far as how well the app works, let’s get one thing out of the way: this isn’t a desktop Dropbox app. You will not sync your entire Dropbox folder to the phone like you would with a PC, and for good reason (space being the primary). That does present some downsides, though; there aren’t any thumbnails for images, for example. If your DB image or public folder is… less than amazingly organized, it can be a bit of time downloading and opening various images until you find the right one.
You also cannot yet delete anything from your Dropbox from Android: if you screw up, it’s there until you can get to a web browser or computer to clean it up. If it’s truly a screw up of catastrophic proportions, however, you can always visit Dropbox via your phone’s browser.
There are also some silly workarounds: When you install the app and try to access your files, you’ll notice that everything just… opens. If you hold the context menu, you can open it or share links three different ways, but there’s no option to save, most of the time. Despite that, everything that you open is saved in /sdcard/dropbox—even files Dropbox doesn’t know how to open.
If, for instance, you have a PDF file on your Dropbox, but no PDF reader, Dropbox will tell you it doesn’t know how to view this file, but it’ll let you open it as a text file. Once it’s downloaded, you can get out of the text version and find it on the SD card again. For music files, streaming begins immediately, but if you click and hold, the context menu will offer an option to download it instead of streaming it. Images all download directly to SD. APKs open directly to the app installer, but you can cancel the install and it will still go to SD. It’s a little bit of a hack (Dropbox does this for caching purposes), but it’s an easy way to move files. Uploading, on the other hand, has no such handy workarounds at the moment – it’ll only let you upload pictures, video, audio, or text.
App menu changes between release (above) and original debut (below)
I’ve also noticed some bugs with integration. On my installation, Dropbox didn’t insert itself into the Share option as the site says it should; I cannot upload photos from a photo viewer, or files from a generic file explorer. All of my uploading has to be done directly from the app itself. This may be a bug. Integration with the share menu is certainly promised from the Dropbox team’s blog post, so it should be available. Quick reconnaissance around the net shows others complaining of the same issue; perhaps it just didn’t make the cut for the initial version, which is listed as v0.9.7. There’s also no option to favorite something, another item that was promised during development (see image, right).
Final thoughts
Why is this app worth it? The obvious answer is that it’s free. Even if it wasn’t, though, at the time of this writing, I consider it the easiest way to shuttle files on and off of your phone wirelessly. Other wireless sync solutions are for-pay, such as Missing Sync, which runs for $30, or cumbersome workarounds, like configuring an FTP server and remembering an IP address. Neither of these options it easy to send links to content to people you need to see it, either.
Dropbox is about as plug-and-play as it gets. Need to get a new apk on your phone, but forgot your USB cable? Plop it in your Dropbox. Need to share a note or picture with other people? Press and hold and share the link via email, Twitter, SMS, or what have you. Want to send somebody a swank new ringtone? Upload it directly from your phone. It’s just… easy.
Goods:
- +Access to your Dropbox!
- +Easiest way to send files to and from your Android phone
- +Easy to share your Dropbox contents with anybody on the go
- +Free as in beer
Bads:
- -Can’t delete from your Dropbox on the phone yet
- -No image previews
- -Share functions currently broken
If you don’t have an account yet, sign on up at Dropbox and grab the installer from the Market by scanning the QR code located above right. As they say at Dropbox, happy syncing!
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