skydrive

The new SkyDrive login screen

Two weeks ago Hotmail became Outlook.com with a new Metro…errr..modern look to it and now it is finally time for SkyDrive to get the same makeover.

Heading to www.skydrive.com you can see the new site redesign (log out and refresh if you are not seeing it) that brings it up to par with the Windows 8, Windows Phone and Outlook’s new appearance. And yes, Microsoft is not calling it Metro but rather are using ‘modern’ instead—take that as you will.

Besides the new look, SkyDrive also gets some new features on board including instant search, contextual toolbar, thumbnail multi-select, drag-and-drop organization, and HTML5 sorting which should make the service is more fun to use.

Microsoft has today unveiled the Outlook.com preview to the public, which is essentially a Hotmail upgrade. The successor is completely metrofied, and is feature rich taking elements and functionality from both Hotmail and Exchange. Outlook.com is integrated into Windows and Office, while being able to connect to social networks including Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and LinkedIn for contact synchronisation.

Microsoft is offering 7GB of free storage through SkyDrive for those signing up to the new email service, and is attempting to turn users away from email attachements to cloud storage. Outlook.com will become a supported option when setting up email on Windows 8, Windows Phone (as well as other smartphones that support Exchange ActiveSync). From the video below, we can see Skype integration being present for video calls to be made without launching the app. Exciting stuff.

Backing up app data on SkyDrive--not cool with Microsoft?

An interesting controversy spring up over at the AppHub forums over the use of SkyDrive for backing up app data—not so much photos and documents (which is fine) but rather unintelligible files created by apps for app-specific data.

The crux of it was someone from the SkyDrive team made a comment that using SkyDrive for such a purpose goes against the user agreement for the API and it could result in the Windows Phone app being yanked from the Marketplace.

Justin Angel, Principal Engineer for Windows Phone experience at Nokia, fervently objected to this idea noting

“As SkyDrive API usage is not part of the Application Certification Guidelines I resent that team threatening app developers with expulsion from the marketplace for misuse of their API.”

It’s certainly a good point although we see the reasoning behind the SkyDrive team’s position. Luckily things are not as dire as expected.

Microsoft today blogged about their strategy for Skydrive and how its going to fit in with Office 2013. Skydrive is already the backbone for many MS services, everything from Xbox Cloud-saved games to providing a space to upload photos when sending from Hotmail. In this little preview, we get a look at how Office may look on WP8, complete with new style Windows logo.

This year will see Office 2013 released, as long as you're signed into your PC with your Live ID it will automatically save your documents to Skydrive as the default option. The post then goes on talk about the new feature of Office 2013 where it will remember the exact paragraph you were last reading so that when you pick up your next device you’ll be right where you left off.

Whilst a mockup - its showing off that new Windows Logo

The post goes on to state that those features will extend to the mobile device also. Synchronised reading position for a document being worked on certainly sounds very useful. What more can we speculate will be rolled into Windows Phone 8? If WP8 is going to be much more business friendly than Windows Phone 7 then I am expecting a good deal of features baked in.

We know that Skype is going to be first class citizen with Office 2013 but I would expect to see Lync thrown in here for good measure. If they are talking about synced reading views then I would expect the same form of touch based reading experience that is offered in Office 2013. Currently Windows Phone already has some nice touches in the Office Hub, recent documents  already exists but Office 2013 takes that slightly further by showing documents from all applications the the various storage locations you have been using.

What else might we expect? Well Word 2013 can now edit PDF documents. Perhaps WP8 will be able to dispense with a PDF viewer completely in favour of Word in reading mode. Presence is a huge thing in the corporate world so seeing who’s online for live document collaboration or chat using Lync or Skype? I don’t see why the already excellent Windows Phone version of Office can’t go on to be a real star in the Windows 8 story.

I’d love to know what you would like to see in Office 2013 on Windows Phone 8.

Source: Microsoft

The Windows Phone app SkyManager from JDB Pocketware is a nice alternative to access your SkyDrive account. It was temporarily pulled from the Marketplace a short time ago due to logo issues but is back and was recently updated to version 1.2.  The v1.2 update comes just a few days after seeing the version 1.1 update being pushed out that added a good bit of functionality to SkyManager.

SkyManager lays your SkyDrive contents out in either tile fashion or a list view. SkyManager allows you to create and edit folders, upload/download content, and browse your shared folders. Your image uploads can be custom set to reduce resolution (width) or max it out at 2048 pixels. Additional features for SkyManager includes:

• Support for ZIP files, Support for video files
• Sharing folders via email, SMS or posting on your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Live or LinkedIn)
• Multi-user/Multi-account support.

We've tinkered with SkyManager for some time now and find it to be a simple, yet feature rich alternative to the Microsoft SkyDrive app. There are two versions available for SkyManager over at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

There is a free version that is ad supported and has some limited functionality (can't pin folders to Start Screen, no photo editing tools, no multiple account support, and no shortened URLs). The full version of SkyManager is ad free and will cost you $2.99.

You can find SkyManager free here and SkyManager full here at the Windows Phone Marketplace.

In our latest how-to guide, we show you how to make the most of your Windows Phone and SkyDrive cloud storage

We've touched on the basics with Microsoft's SkyDrive services and the SkyDrive App for your Windows Phone. But how does all that translate into every day use?

The obvious every day use for SkyDrive and your Windows Phone is to free up storage space and make content easily available. Why bog down your Windows Phone with documents, pictures, and music files when you can store them in the Cloud and access them at your leisure? But did you know that several quality apps utilize SkyDrive? Of course you did... and we'll try to cover a few along the way as we look at every day uses for your SkyDrive account.

While details are scarce, we're getting a lot of reports that the official SkyDrive app for Windows Phone received an update tonight.

Indeed, the app has a version 2.1 stamp on it now, shortly after going to version 2.0 just two weeks ago. We can't see any new features (no batch uploads, etc.) but presumably there are some under the hood fixes on board.

We're not sure if it's new or not but uploading photos directly via this app does preserve photo integrity, which is good news for those with 8 or 16MP cameras. We tried both our Titan II and Lumia 900 and both photos were completely untouched, meaning we're using this as our default photo upload service (more on that tomorrow).

Anyway, if you find any other changes, hit us up in comments as it's late here and our perusing skills are waning by the moment.

Pick up version 2.1 here in the Marketplace. Thanks, everyone, for the tips

Microsoft takes on Dropbox and Google Drive with the latest version of their SkyDrive service

Today Microsoft has announced new SkyDrive storage plans for their cloud service as well as new native sync apps for Windows PC and Apple OSX. Combined with official apps for Windows Phone and iOS that were recently updated, Microsoft looks to undercut the market leader Dropbox and block Google from cutting in on their territory.

Clearly the cloud-storage service SkyDrive will be a center piece between Windows 8, Windows Phone and Xbox 360 going forward. Best of all, Microsoft has extended this offer to Mac users who can also benefit from the new SkyDrive functionality.

We reported on the news yesterday that the SkyDrive app for Windows Phone had been updated, but we can now rejoice with Windows, Mac and iPhone support now being available. Both PC and Mac preview clients work in similar ways. SkyDrive sits comfortably as a central folder in Windows Explorer and Mac Finder, much like Dropbox, and files (up to 2GB) can be transferred between computers (and supported devices).

With the revamp of the SkyDrive service and new clients being released, Microsoft has also lowered the freely available storage from 25GB to 7GB, noting in the MSDN blog post that 99.94% of SkyDrive users currently use 7GB or less. Even at 7GB for free, Microsoft has given a solid left-hook to rival Dropbox who offer a mere 2GB of free storage.

New SkyDrive clients and apps in action

Note, however, should you be an existing SkyDrive user, Microsoft is offering the opportunity to keep the 25GB (or upgrade in this case) for free so be sure to check out the offer on your SkyDrive account (login via the skydrive.live.com). An alert will be displayed announcing "SkyDrive's free storage is changing."

If 25GB (or 7GB if you're a new user or miss out on the free upgrade) isn't enough for your needs, Microsoft is offering three upgrade options for the SkyDrive service:

• Additional 20GB - £6/yr ($10)
• Addition 50GB - £16/yr ($25)
• Additional 100GB - £32/yr ($50)

The above plans and native clients were all first reported by Brazilian website Gemind, back in February. It's interesting to note that Microsoft has unleashed the updates to their service now, just before Google are set to unveil Google Drive as a cloud-based storage solution for their ecosystem. The features present in SkyDrive however are more appealing, minus the Android support for owners of green robotic devices.

Source: MSDN