Dropbox updates iOS app, will phase out public folders

[Jos]

Cloud storage startup has kept extra busy as competition is growing stronger with the launch of Google Drive and Microsoft’s SkyDrive getting dedicated desktop apps as well as a revamped feature set. Today, they are announcing a follow up to the photo upload feature that debuted on Android and reached the desktop recently, enabling automatic photos and video uploads on iOS over 3G/4G or Wi-Fi.

The new feature allows for uploads of any size. Once your media files are copied to Dropbox you can skim through photos and videos in a gallery view, delete and move sets of files or individual files. There's also the option to earn up to 3GB of extra free space for uploading photos, in 500MB increments.

On a related note, the company also announced in a letter to developers that starting August 1st, new user accounts will be built without the Public folder and existing users won’t be able to create new ones either. Apparently Dropbox feels the feature became redundant after it added the ability to share any file or folder with a simple link back in April. That will be the main way of sharing files with others going forward.

Dropbox will let existing public folders continue to exist but is advising developers whose third-party apps depend on Public folders to switch over to the new method.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/49015-dropbox-updates-ios-app-will-phase-out-public-folders.html

 

[PinothyJ]

That reason is unlikely: Dropbox have decided that it is safer in the long run, legally at least, to remove public folders because then there is less chance of copyright infringement being an issue...

 

[Guest]

It's truly unfortunate that they are removing the public folders. They are an excellent way to collaborate. Sharing links is fine but has no organization.

 

[Captain828]

Not sure how you use public folders to collaborate.
Shared folders is what I've been using for quite a while. They're easy to set up and secure.

 

[spydercanopus]

I can't wait for storage and network technology to improve so we can stop pretending like a GB is a lot. People need online storage based TB. At least I do.

 

[TJGeezer]

I'll take one petabyte, thank you.