Dropbox introduces new API features

https://blog.dropbox.com/2013/07/dbx/

by dmrd • 13 years ago

103 30 13 years ago

blog.dropbox.com

Can anyone who uses the Dropbox API tell me if these features are significant?

From my .Net developer's point of view, I am not seeing why these aren't just weak versions of the Azure storage capabilities or Amazon's S3. It's nice to be able to target DropBox as a storage location but that's a pretty rare use-case for me. Especially since their security store is incomplete.

andrewmunsell2• 13 years ago

Well, from a quick look at the Datastore API, they provide conflict resolution and offline support, which are pretty big if you're working on a mobile application.

foobarqux• 13 years ago

How do they do actual conflict resolution? The example they give is address changed on one device and e-mail on another. That isn't a conflict.

area51org2• 13 years ago

It's a step toward evolution: Dropbox becoming a platform and not just a cloudy app. I wonder, though, about the amount of storage available at the free level -- is it enough to support a true platform?

Selfcommit• 13 years ago

isn't dropbox built on top of amazon?

Isn't it a platform on a platform at that point?

danielsiders2• 13 years ago

I think fundamentally Dropbox's move away from the filesystem by exposing an API like this and through application acquisitions (music and mail) is about trying to become the Apple of personal data.

Dropbox has done a phenomenal job of taking a complex challenge (file sync) and making an incredibly simple user experience. Extending that strategy into other common tasks with new and purchased apps could be very successful. The big element missing is BaaS (back-end as a service) for data and events that aren't files. Given the poor track record of services like iCloud, you can imagine a lot of developers adopting the Dropbox API and in a few years most iOS devices might be running a combination of official Dropbox apps (replacements for itunes, mail, and maybe calendar) and many other essentially stateless apps that use the Dropbox API for sync and storage.

In the short term this could be very convenient for users and developers, but in the long run it creates another monolithic, centralized platform. This kind of functionality needs to be delivered as a protocol so users can choose service providers who compete on price, features, and privacy instead of being citizens of a particular platform (Facebook, Apple, Google, MSFT, or increasingly Dropbox).

epochwolf• 13 years ago

This kind of functionality needs to be delivered as a protocol so users can choose service providers who compete on price, features, and privacy instead of being citizens of a particular platform (Facebook, Apple, Google, MSFT, or increasingly Dropbox).

How would this benefit dropbox?

minimaxir4• 13 years ago

"[...] over 175 million people using Dropbox and more than a billion files synced each day"

Assuming that the "1 billion" refers to number of sync events, that statistic implies that on average, Dropbox users only make changes to ~6 files in their Dropbox per day.

That doesn't make any sense at all. Dropbox must have a massive Power Law at work.

EDIT: I might be wrong with my interpretation of "files synced": it could mean distinct numbers of files that receive a sync event atleast once per day or files added per day to a Dropbox which are then synced. In both cases, I believe the ~6/day statistic and I apologize.

smackfu2• 13 years ago

Does 6 seem high or low to you?

minimaxir4• 13 years ago

If a user is using Dropbox as backup/sync as opposed to free long-term storage, 6 seems unbelieveably low.

I store my IM logs in my Dropbox. Every time a message is sent, 2 files are changed (the message log and the overall database). One conversation alone can fire 100 sync events.

And if you're like me and are a Ctrl+S addict when working on important papers or code, each Ctrl+S is a sync event.

latortuga• 13 years ago

If you consider a "file sync" event as a single file being pulled to a single device, it could be 1 file to 6 devices per day which seems a lot more realistic to me. Especially when you consider teams that are probably syncing files across tens of devices multiple times per day.

archon• 13 years ago

that statistic implies that on average, Dropbox users only make changes to ~6 files in their Dropbox per day.

I believe it. Maybe I'm an outlier, but I usually only write to a few files from Dropbox in any given day. I read those files often, but I rarely write unless I'm doing something like uploading pictures from my camera.

timdorr• 13 years ago

Makes sense to me. Not every user uses Dropbox every single day. Also, the 175m number is not qualified as people who have used the app in a certain amount of time, so that could include inactive accounts.

ryguytilidie• 13 years ago

Man, I really don't want to come off as a hater at all, but I never got the dropbox hype. They seriously have a developer conference now? Yikes.

minimaxir4• 13 years ago

What about the Box and Twilio conferences?

foolfoolz• 13 years ago

it's become the hot thing for enterprise companies to host conferences. a good excuse to expense a weekend in california.

mikeash• 13 years ago

Dropbox is incredibly easy and convenient to use. It's very simple, and that's what makes it great. It's simple enough for almost anyone to use. I've pointed tech-unsavvy friends and family at Dropbox with great success. It's just a folder on your computer that magically syncs to all your other computers too.

Now, there's nothing in that which justifies having a developer conference. I definitely do not understand that. But the Dropbox service itself deserves the praise it gets.

nicksergeant• 13 years ago

And this is what Hacker News is, now? And the first comment, to boot?

pjmlp• 13 years ago

I am with you on this one.

I only got dropbox installed on my PC because we needed to exchange some files with an external contractor that only used Dropbox.

As soon as the project was finished I removed it from my PC.

bsimpson• 13 years ago

It seems strange to me that they are bragging about syncing between mobile and the web, but the only web SDK they provide is for JavaScript - I can't even find REST documentation for the Datastore API.

I love the idea of cloud apps that use user-provided datastores. It makes it both cheaper for a startup (because they can crowdsource their data storage) and easier for users to control what data services have about them. Google Drive already provides a service whereby I can store a user's data in his Drive account without cluttering his filesystem with my app's metadata. Dropbox Datastores sounds like a similar feature, but it's way less appealing to me if I can't talk to it from my backend.

jzcoder• 13 years ago

I agree. The first thing I did when I saw this announcement was look for the REST API. Surely, those existing platform specific libraries are built on a REST API, so why not document and release them.

pavpanchekha• 13 years ago

It's in beta; don't want to nail down the protocol.

peteysd• 13 years ago

Seems like this is in direct competition with Parse.

I look forward to kicking the tires, since I've been looking for a solid replacement for Parse ever since Facebook bought them.

Dropbox introduces new API features

Related Stories