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**cloud storage**potential buyers read**

trophynuts said:
you made some valid points however for people that are on unlimited data with no caps, a lot of these issues with cloud storage are non existent.

so far for me since i'm on unlimited data the only downside to embracing cloud storage would be if i were in an area with no coverage and i needed to get something from the cloud. For me though i am rarely anywhere without coverage. So I think that would be a very small issue for me.
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Agreed. Key is for consumers to have choice and not be forced into one way. Seems a given the data caps are going to be like oil and water for phone oriented cloud storage.
 
rushmore said:
The end game for OEMs, carriers and content providers.

1. Data mining
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Data mining for what? Simply donning a tinfoil hat and screaming "data mining" does not making a valid fear. With any service there will be a EULA about what they can and cannot do with your data. We have several cloud-based applications and data services here at work. Guess what? We have agreements with the vendors about what they are allowed to do with our data. Basically, nothing. They are not allowed to touch, look at, copy, move or otherwise interact with our data in any way.

You can argue the trust point all day, but you put your trust in various service providers all day long so I don't think it's a valid argument.

2. Data cap breaches. Carriers are banking on this, since more cloud usage equals more cap breaches and or upgrages of data plans. Seems silly that people would fall for that, but does not take much of a percent for the install base to generate serious revenue.
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Fair point. I think it's up to the buyers to deal with, though. The providers are giving out the tools to monitor your data usage. I don't see why this is different than, say, electricity. More and more devices are getting plugged in at our houses every day, does every manufacturer have to protect the consumer from having high electric bills?

3. More control of content used by the consumer, plus usage rights.
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This is not a cohesive argument. What do you mean, "plus usage rights"? How are they leveraging control of content?

4. Cheaper cost for the OEM, since less flash storage or ports on the devices (as an aggregate).
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Good, they're gouging the f**k out of consumers on flash storage. $100 more for a few extra bucks worth of flash chips soldered onto the motherboard? These are hardware costs and reductions are passed onto the consumers or are made up for in other features.

Do you folks honestly think the intent of data clouds are for the good of the consumer? Seems the opposite of good, unless consumers are continued to be offered choices of if they want it or not.
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I am going to assume you do not work in the IT space? The point of "the cloud" is to leverage massive amounts of computing resources in an efficient, scalable, distributed and highly available system. There's no conspiracy. This is better for EVERYONE. CPU cycles are not going to waste, information is available from everywhere with an internet connection, and you get to - oh, say, store your music distributed across many data centers. Please, tell me, how would you manage to maintain geographically separate copies of your data on an ongoing basis in secure, highly available places that keep high-bandwidth connections online all the time?

I'm a photographer. I have hundreds of gigabytes of photos. Prior to cloud storage coming into its own, I had to do the time consuming task of burning DVDs every month or backing up to drives and physically transporting these items to the people who would store them for me. If I needed them, they would have to be physically transported back. Now, I have them stored online, all the time, in encrypted archives and separate physical locations. That's not a backup you can make as an individual.

Also, I don't understand your fear about not having choices. Do you see any trend away from large storage blocks? The Nexus is coming with 32gb of internal storage. That's not exactly restrictive. True, the media hounds might want something bigger, but you can't get much bigger than that right now since MicroSD cards are only 32gb at the moment.

Do folks not find it interesting that the carriers are crying about bandwidth and network costs, but they at the same time are guiding people into cloud content which requires more bandwidth than locally stored content?
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Carriers are not crying about bandwidth. They were making the valid claim that wireless data is extremely expensive and that unlimited data plans were not sustainable. Anyone who doesn't agree with that argument doesn't understand network infrastructure - simple.

At the same time pushing 4G devices, even though new users must pay $30 for 2 teeny gigs?
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I agree that 2gb is too small heading into an age of 4G technology.

And to support their rationale, they use data usage trends based on years of data with a heavy bias of 2G and non Android phone use.
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Would you like them to use data usage trends on non-existant phone usage? Usage patterns change, but you need to analyze them as they change and adjust. There isn't a large market of 4G phones yet. Data caps will go up in the near future.
 
binary visions said:
Data mining for what? Simply donning a tinfoil hat and screaming "data mining" does not making a valid fear. With any service there will be a EULA about what they can and cannot do with your data. We have several cloud-based applications and data services here at work. Guess what? We have agreements with the vendors about what they are allowed to do with our data. Basically, nothing. They are not allowed to touch, look at, copy, move or otherwise interact with our data in any way.

You can argue the trust point all day, but you put your trust in various service providers all day long so I don't think it's a valid argument.



Fair point. I think it's up to the buyers to deal with, though. The providers are giving out the tools to monitor your data usage. I don't see why this is different than, say, electricity. More and more devices are getting plugged in at our houses every day, does every manufacturer have to protect the consumer from having high electric bills?


This is not a cohesive argument. What do you mean, "plus usage rights"? How are they leveraging control of content?


Good, they're gouging the f**k out of consumers on flash storage. $100 more for a few extra bucks worth of flash chips soldered onto the motherboard? These are hardware costs and reductions are passed onto the consumers or are made up for in other features.


I am going to assume you do not work in the IT space? The point of "the cloud" is to leverage massive amounts of computing resources in an efficient, scalable, distributed and highly available system. There's no conspiracy. This is better for EVERYONE. CPU cycles are not going to waste, information is available from everywhere with an internet connection, and you get to - oh, say, store your music distributed across many data centers. Please, tell me, how would you manage to maintain geographically separate copies of your data on an ongoing basis in secure, highly available places that keep high-bandwidth connections online all the time?

I'm a photographer. I have hundreds of gigabytes of photos. Prior to cloud storage coming into its own, I had to do the time consuming task of burning DVDs every month or backing up to drives and physically transporting these items to the people who would store them for me. If I needed them, they would have to be physically transported back. Now, I have them stored online, all the time, in encrypted archives and separate physical locations. That's not a backup you can make as an individual.

Also, I don't understand your fear about not having choices. Do you see any trend away from large storage blocks? The Nexus is coming with 32gb of internal storage. That's not exactly restrictive. True, the media hounds might want something bigger, but you can't get much bigger than that right now since MicroSD cards are only 32gb at the moment.


Carriers are not crying about bandwidth. They were making the valid claim that wireless data is extremely expensive and that unlimited data plans were not sustainable. Anyone who doesn't agree with that argument doesn't understand network infrastructure - simple.


I agree that 2gb is too small heading into an age of 4G technology.



Would you like them to use data usage trends on non-existant phone usage? Usage patterns change, but you need to analyze them as they change and adjust. There isn't a large market of 4G phones yet. Data caps will go up in the near future.
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......... Are your a lobbyist? ;)
 
Sorry but all these cloud storage and drop box, you basically store data on the web and in order to retreieve them you gotta download them back to your device? Because I would love to store apps and even movies but if we gotta download them back, i don't see an actual point of these applications. Also what do you guys think is the best service? Dropbox, box.net etc? I could get the 50gb from my iphone but dont know if ill use it if its not worth the charm.
 
I think the cloud based service was developed for corporate and business use to begin with, documents could be stored in a cloud based account owned by a business and employees would be given access to the cloud account and have access to those documents. Employees could review and even edit those documents and save them back to the cloud account and then other employees to access those same documents and that way a project was available to all who needed access to them no matter their location.

The fact of the matter is the iPhone does not have a SD card and now Apple has gone to a cloud based system for iTunes and they plan on also streaming Videos from that same system called the iCould. I can guarantee that Google is going to go this same path in the near future. The phone manufactures are going to be forced to remove SD card slots in the phones based on the carriers request as they will also get into the cloud based service as a paid service for their customers. It's all about the money, yes you will be forced into it or you will be forced to be more and more selective as to what and how much media you store on your phones in the future. Its sad but its a fact of future technology, nothing you can do about it except to adapt and find a method that you can use comfortably and securely before its forced down your throats.

I do not like to pay for something I dont have to, so I am looking into creating my own cloud server in my home with my own security and private access that no body else can gain access to except my family members. See that is were this cloud based service is a good thing. A family can have an cloud and store music and videos even games and ebooks in one place that everyone in the family can share. This can be accessed through any computer in the house or even a computer at a friends house or neighbors house if you choose. It can be accessed from any mobile device of any family member from anyplace in the country or world! Service members or family members that live throughout the world can share in the families photos, music, video and games, those are advantages to this system.

If any of you have a PS3 system and a Windows 7 computer in your house you may already know that your PS3 system is setup to see all of your media files...music, videos and photos that are stored on your computer, this is the future of electronics!

One last comment, there will come a time when you will not buy a physical DVD or CD or even a video game, you will buy a digital copy and that will be loaded into YOUR cloud, all of your media will be non physical and only exist within your cloud, in fact soon you will see electronic manufactures produce TV's and surround sound systems, computers and even cars that are setup to use cloud based media as their primary source of input.

Your may think this is futuristic and wont happen in your lifetime....well you would be wrong, it's coming and sooner than you think so be ready and start becoming accustom to the idea now before your left behind!
 
rushmore said:
......... Are your a lobbyist? ;)
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No, just someone who doesn't think FUD is the right way to approach new technologies...


darkestred said:
I just want to make sure people know that cloud storage has been around before it was called cloud storage. Right? In other words it's nothing new.
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Sort of. I mean, sure, but it was never really this user-facing, accessible, or cheap.
 
Sorry to interrupt the debate but I have 8 Google Music invites if there are a few that want to try it out. PM me with your email. I'll post back when they are gone.

All gone!
 
binary visions said:
No, just someone who doesn't think FUD is the right way to approach new technologies...




Sort of. I mean, sure, but it was never really this user-facing, accessible, or cheap.
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I clearly state it is cool if choice is the end game and not just remote storage. Even posted I use a personal network, but for folks with capped data, it is not a very good option. Ditto for everyone else if they are somewhere they can not connect to get their content.
 
rushmore said:
I clearly state it is cool if choice is the end game and not just remote storage. Even posted I use a personal network, but for folks with capped data, it is not a very good option. Ditto for everyone else if they are somewhere they can not connect to get their content.
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Ah. You'll forgive me for thinking data caps weren't your only issue with it when you say:

rushmore said:
...lame a$$ cloud that is a pure data mine...Big brother is in the house...The cloud is a Trojan horse in several ways...Data mining...More control of content...usage rights...Cheaper cost for the OEM...
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If your post had only said: "my big problem with the cloud is, in an era of data caps, it is pushing consumers more and more towards over-running their data limits and incurring charges" - I would have said, "Yes, I agree." :) The problem is the average consumer will readily believe implications like "big brother is watching" even when it's not true.

I foresee data caps going up fairly soon as 4G becomes widely used. I'm just happy I'm still on my unlimited plan.
 
binary visions said:
Ah. You'll forgive me for thinking data caps weren't your only issue with it when you say:



If your post had only said: "my big problem with the cloud is, in an era of data caps, it is pushing consumers more and more towards over-running their data limits and incurring charges" - I would have said, "Yes, I agree." :) The problem is the average consumer will readily believe implications like "big brother is watching" even when it's not true.

I foresee data caps going up fairly soon as 4G becomes widely used. I'm just happy I'm still on my unlimited plan.
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Folks here tend to be more savvy, so I consider the "audience" and am rarely 100% serious ;)

The Big Bro stuff is a play on 1984, so fun. ALL non private network data is mined in some way- it is what it is. The key issue is the mix of 2gb caps, 4G, cloud storage and higher def content is NOT consumer friendly. From that perspective, pushing cloud storage is lame.
 
rushmore said:
Folks here tend to be more savvy, so I consider the "audience" and am rarely 100% serious ;)
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Gotcha.

The Big Bro stuff is a play on 1984, so fun. ALL non private network data is mined in some way- it is what it is. The key issue is the mix of 2gb caps, 4G, cloud storage and higher def content is NOT consumer friendly. From that perspective, pushing cloud storage is lame.
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This, I agree with. But as with anything in a competitive market, a balance will be struck - consumers will start paying for bandwidth (like they should - unlimited plans are ridiculous with infrastructure as expensive as wireless/4G), and the carriers will be forced to offer appropriate pricing and tiers.
 
binary visions said:
Gotcha.



This, I agree with. But as with anything in a competitive market, a balance will be struck - consumers will start paying for bandwidth (like they should - unlimited plans are ridiculous with infrastructure as expensive as wireless/4G), and the carriers will be forced to offer appropriate pricing and tiers.
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Seems if the carriers would simply throttle folks after 5GB and offer "power user" rates for data hounds, all would be good. I agree unlimited is silly, but they can easily control through throttling. "My" company uses their data, so I should know (at least on the corporate side).

The carriers used data they knew was incorrect in regard to setting the 2gb caps. The two main carrier reps for our company may not know when devices are coming out, but they do know the network and costing side. Both tell the same same story on what was used for the "95% of people use less than 2gb". They were not current, nor forward thinking- by design.

The carriers, Amazon, Google and Apple (as example) are forcing a consumer data use confrontation that will involve the FCC. That will probably not help things overall, so not suggesting it is a good thing.
 
Definitely agree. Although they do offer data at $10/gb/month which is a little high but not crazy. I think their base plan needs to start at 5gb, after which I think $10/gb/month is not bad.

Throttling is a great solution unless they go the T-mobile route. Throttling to 2G speeds is excessive.
 
milkshed27 said:
Almost all of the storage space on my phone is taken up by music. My collection on my external drive is over 200gb which I swap out into my SD card as needed. I listen to music most of the day, everyday and having a phone that can serve me as a media player has allowed me to carry one less device. My main concern with cloud is the toll that it would take on battery life and if any, on audio quality.
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I got tired of deciding what music I might want to listen to 3 days from now, and started using Audiogalaxy. I love it. It certainly has it's draw backs, like having to have a decent connection, etc., but for the most part it's great, especially if you have 100s MBs of music.

Just my $0.02 worth.
 
Intercrew said:
Sorry but all these cloud storage and drop box, you basically store data on the web and in order to retreieve them you gotta download them back to your device? Because I would love to store apps and even movies but if we gotta download them back, i don't see an actual point of these applications. Also what do you guys think is the best service? Dropbox, box.net etc? I could get the 50gb from my iphone but dont know if ill use it if its not worth the charm.
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u have a point but - the same file isnt actually downloaded each time u access it, as files are synced.
 
What about the data usage charges for accessing your "cloud". Most carriers only give you 2GB with the data plan. VZW made it clear that NetFlix is something they are promoting in the RAZR announcement. I am not sure how small a NetFlix video is over a phone, but it will add up quickly.

I have unlimited data through VZW which leaves me not concerned. However, I will be fighting with VZW if they want to start charging me more.
 
A lot of great information in this thread. Thanks OP and others. This thread would benefit in the Android Lounge, IMO. Unless there is already a thread like this one. I'm definitely going to sign up for box.net since it's free. ;) I'm not a cloud storage supporter but I'm a free stuff supporter. :D

Yeah, my only concern would be the increase data usage even though I'm not on a tiered data plan. I have a feeling that even the grandfathered unlimited data plans would be in danger of extinction. With the Iphone being available on all the major carriers, all the 4G devices and now the growing popularity of streaming media through apps and cloud services...this all leads to an unlimited data doomsday. Quite frankly...I'm scared. I have three little kids that will want smartphones soon. That's gonna be expensive. :p

Anyways, thanks again for the info everyone.
 
@xmr405o thanks, that was my intent on this thread was to at least give people the knowledge a little bit so that they would have a better understanding. Glad you found it useful.
 
chrlswltrs said:
For those looking for cloud storage I came across a great deal today. Starting today for the next 50 days you can get 50GB of online data with box.net for free. The only catch is you have to activate your account from an iOS device. After you activate your account the 50GB is yours free for life though and there is an Android app that is very similar to Dropbox.
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Couldn't you just change your user agent to iPhone or iPad?
 
I've only used about 75% of the storage space on my Dink to date so not to worried about that.

I save images and such to Gmail or copy to PC and put those on a 1TB backup drive so good to go there. ;)
 
The issue with the cloud is not just data access issues, but the power drain using cloud to playback content. The battery is already going to be challenged enough with dual core, larger hi res display and decoding a video. The radio will drain the battery along with all of that. Not to mention data caps for those that are not unlimited.

If playing music, it should drain no more than Pandora, but people assuming video playback is practical, may be surprised.

Seems current battery tech and network cap constraints are not cloud friendly. Even if you have "unlimited" data, you will get throttled. Heavy media users would be the main people to run into issues.
 
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