Microsoft Releases Skydrive App For iOS, Brings Cloud Storage To iPhone, iPod Touch

Microsoft is really starting to embrace this iOS thing.

Soon after releasing My Xbox Live in Apple's App Store, Microsoft has pushed out another app for iPhone and iPod Touch. The software giant has released Skydrive, its cloud storage service, as a standalone app for Apple devices.

Skydrive is a fairly standard way to store your photos and documents in the cloud, allowing you to view, share, upload and download select file types (a wide range of photos, videos and documents) from anywhere. All you need is a Windows Live ID (Hotmail, MSN Messenger or Xbox Live accounts work) and you'll be set to access and share your files on your iPhone.

The feature set, from the iTunes store description:

• Access all of your SkyDrive content including files shared with you
• View recently used documents
• Upload photos or videos from your phone
• Share a link to any file using email
• Create folders. Delete files or folders

Despite having a budding mobile operating system of its own, Microsoft has shown a willingness to release its own software for the iPhone. Most recently, the company put out My Xbox Live, the first-ever mobile profile control center for the popular Xbox gaming platform. Now, Microsoft has followed up here with both a cloud storage app, as well as a 3D children's game called Kinectimals.

With Skydrive on iOS, Microsoft enters what is already a fairly crowded cloud storage market. There is the behemoth Dropbox, for one, as well as Box.net, which recently offered 50 free GB of storage with an iOS download. And with the release of iOS 5, Apple launched its own cloud service for the iPhone, the heavily advertised iCloud.

If you prefer Skydrive, however, it can be yours, for the price of...free! With your Windows Live ID, you get 25GB of free storage on Microsoft's cloud storage locker to use as you please. You can download Skydrive for iOS now in the iTunes store.

Comments

[Doc bg]

01:46 AM on 12/15/2011

Providing 25GB is a good first draw on part of Skydrive and usually thats where comparisons are done but future battles between competitors need not be about cheap raw storage alone but value added features as well. Take a look at Zukmo which provides for storage, sharing, content aggregation from multiple sources, file sync etc.

[Winski]

11:00 PM on 12/14/2011

IF you actually put a Microshaft software package on an IOS device, why do you have an Apple device? Either you're an idiot or you got nothing better to do with your time..

[Pectin]

09:31 AM on 12/15/2011

Nonsense.

[Keith R Brock]

10:48 PM on 12/14/2011

keep it local, keep it private.

[Layman23]

10:25 PM on 12/14/2011

Good strategy for Microsoft. Embrace your enemy, hiding a knife behind you. It just might work. They have a history of coming from behind and ruling the market. Apple just has to keep ahead.

[MIKEinNYC]

10:03 PM on 12/14/2011

If you value your privacy Don't Use the Cloud. People moan and groan about invasion of privacy but then they'll blow their own privacy to bits by using these new, pernicious "cloud" things.

I don't care how convenient it is. Unless you are ready to totally throw your privacy and civil rights out the window don't use it. You don't need it. Keep your content local, (on your device).

Firms like CoreLogic will get their hands on your personal info. They will buy it from Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, everybody to whom you entrusted some personal informatio­­n. They will piece it together and come up with a good profile of you.

Do you really want some gatekeeper knowing what you're using, what you're watching; where you are; where you're going; what you're listening to; what you're reading; what software you're running; who you are talking to when you are on your computer, cell phone or tablet in real time?

Once that informatio­­­­­­­­­n is in some corporatio­­­­­­­­­n'­s cloud repository it will be totally and instantly discoverab­­­­­­­­­le and shareable. And don't think that the altruistic cloud companies are doing this for your benefit. They do it because it cuts down on piracy.

Then wait for Law Enforcemen­­­­­­­­­t to get its hands on it. You will be an open book. You can kiss your privacy and your civil liberties "goodbye" and you will have no one to blame but yourself, Plaxico.

Get off the Cloud. Keep your content local! I'm warnin' you!

[Pectin]

10:17 AM on 12/15/2011

What credentials do you have that prove you to be an authority on the subject?
Why should we heed your warning?

[MIKEinNYC]

11:01 AM on 12/15/2011

Do what you want. Put your life totally on display and make it accessible to others by using the Cloud.

[One Last Time]

03:42 PM on 12/14/2011

Looking forward to seing Office on the platform. Apple has already rolled out their Word/Powerpoint/Excel mobile equivs at very nice price points. Microsoft needs to come out at better price points to make an impact.

And it would be nice to see OpenOffice come out with a free one. :)

[bryanzth]

03:40 PM on 12/14/2011

iCloud => SkyDrive....

Bleagghhh another copy, just like the Zuen, the iPod killer, which itself is dead.

BZ.

[StinkyPete0279]

03:55 PM on 12/14/2011

SkyDrive: released/opened August 2007
iCloud: released/opened October 2011

Yep, they sure are copying Apple alright.

[six seven]

04:44 PM on 12/14/2011

You're wasting your time. BZuen is blind to facts like this.

[bryanzth]

05:18 PM on 12/14/2011

Released first as a tawdry beta just to get it there.

Then adjusted, finessed and then after iCloud, poouff now it's gonna be a copy of iCloud or Amazon's thing.

Nah. Copy. Copy. Copy. Copy.

BZ.

[jgeurian21]

04:18 PM on 12/14/2011

OMG man, you don't even know what you are talking about.

[bryanzth]

05:16 PM on 12/14/2011

OMG man, it was for business uses first, but NOW it's revamped in iOS for music, media, etc.

Why isn't it being used in the Zuen? Cause it's slightly dead, that's why.

iPod killer, hahhahaha

BZ.

[Mauryan]

03:39 PM on 12/14/2011

I love it. 25 gigs for free! That's awesome. Microsoft is doing the right thing by making apps for Apple products. Great thing for the customer!

[Gunderan]

03:29 PM on 12/14/2011

My whole point of buying Apple is not to use Microsoft, The xbox thing is a pain as MS have bought loads of great game companies cause they cant compete with playstation on memory space price.
Plus MS have been trying to sell online storage for business for years and it failed. Cloud the death knell for them i really really hope so .

[Mauryan]

03:43 PM on 12/14/2011

Apple has forced Microsoft to be creative. Otherwise it will face utter disaster. Microsoft of late is beginning to do the right thing after watching the consumer market take off for mobile devices. Their Windows 7 was a great improvement where they included the end user needs for the first time in their software development. Windows 8 is supposed to be really innovative and creative. So long as competition forces companies to adapt, I'd welcome it. Like Steve Jobs said, Apple's success does not mean Microsoft's loss. If companies are forced to be creative and compete by innovating, then we as customers get the best of everything. Apple can go the Microsoft way too, if only they get to make everything. They need competition on a level playing field. End users will get to benefit tremendously from all this.

[Silverwolf72]

04:40 AM on 12/15/2011

They have gone from putting an desktop OS on phones to putting a phone OS on desktops!

[StinkyPete0279]

03:56 PM on 12/14/2011

Wow, that sure is a lot of half-coherent gibberish

[J P P]

01:36 PM on 12/14/2011

Dropbox is better, and it's been out for a long time!

[billy the kid]

10:07 PM on 12/14/2011

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skydrive

skydrive was released in 2007, nice try though

[theveggiedude]

01:25 PM on 12/14/2011

If you can't beat them, join them.

[StinkyPete0279]

03:57 PM on 12/14/2011

They're still beating them pretty handily.

[jgeurian21]

04:25 PM on 12/14/2011

Except the fact that MS has been selling software for Apple systems since it began. If you disregard decades of work, sure I guess you might be right.