First Look: Amazon Cloud Drive Windows Desktop App
Last Updated on Wednesday, 2 May 2012 10:16 Written by Alan Thursday, 3 May 2012 07:00
Yesterday Amazon finally released a desktop app to interface with their Cloud Drive storage service. The new app works with both Windows Vista and Windows 7, as well as the Mac OS. The Cloud Drive service from Amazon has been available for some time now, but they were beat to the punch on desktop functionality by both Microsoft and Google, who released their desktop interfaces for cloud storage last week.
Amazon Cloud Drive gives users get 5 GB of free storage, just as Google Drive does (SkyDrive offers 7 GB). There are additional levels of paid storage available as well – 20 GB for $20 per year, 50 GB for $50 per year, and several higher levels up to 1 TB.
So, what does the new Amazon desktop app for Windows look like and how does it work? We took it for a test drive and here are the first quick impressions, along with some screenshots.
Amazon Cloud Drive desktop setup
Amazon Cloud Drive sign in
Amazon Cloud Drive taskbar
Amazon Cloud Drive options
From the simple desktop app you can open the web interface,open the download folder, change folders, or upgrade your Amazon storage option. To upload files you can simply drag and drop them onto the icon.
You can sign up for Amazon Cloud Drive and download the desktop app by visiting Amazon.
Amazon Releases Desktop Cloud Drive App
Last Updated on Wednesday, 2 May 2012 07:51 Written by Alan Wednesday, 2 May 2012 07:51
Amazon has released a new Cloud Drive app for Windows and Mac that brings a similar functionality to that of the recently released SkyDrive and Google Drive apps. Amazon obviously had this in the works before the Google and Microsoft releases and are likely kicking themselves a bit for being the last one of the big three to come to market. Cloud Drive, like SkyDrive, has been out for sometime, but was accessible only via the web interface before.
The new Amazon app brings the ability to access your Cloud Drive right from a desktop icon. Users can drag and drop files on it to initiate uploads and it also allow for easy downloading of your Cloud stored files as well. If your file transfer is interrupted the app can pick it back up where it left off. All activity is in the background and Amazon claims it won’t interfere with your normal computer use.
The Cloud Drive app is available for Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS 10.6 and OS 10.7 and it’s free to download. Users get 5 GB of free storage and additional paid storage plans are also available.
Cloud Storage Comparison Charts Released
Last Updated on Friday, 27 April 2012 01:06 Written by Alan Friday, 27 April 2012 01:06
Cloud storage has been all over the tech news for the past week with big announcements from SkyDrive, Google Drive, and Dropbox. While it’s all good news for customers, it can also lead to a lot of confusion over which solution is right for each individual. There aren’t many major differences, but each service is different in some ways from all of the others.
Yesterday Casey Johnston, over at Ars Technica, published two charts to help users easily compare seven of the top cloud storage services available - SkyDrive, Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox, SugarSync, Box, and SpiderOak. Among the things shown are the amount of free storage, total storage amount, the cost per month, and more. In a separate chart Johnston illustrates which services are available on which different platforms, for instance SkyDrive is the only service to offer a Windows Phone app and only Dropbox and SpiderOak work with Linux.
You can check out one of the two charts below. To view the other, and read more about this, head over to Ars Technica. You can also read about the recent changes to SkyDrive and the release of Google Drive to get more in-depth about those services.
