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Cloud services - general discussion, Android and iOS
- Thread starter EarlyMon
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Roze
Hiding behind a mystery
Cause I'm quite lazy and have like 15 min before I have to jet...how does this work? Is it like any other streaming app/site? lol Are you using it EM and how much do you like it and use it? How better is it over streaming apps like pandora?
I'm not using it yet, I'm re-doing my entire home network right now (moved more of my office in and plus my router just died - thank goodness for wireless tether while waiting for the replacement to arrive!) - but I plan to use it very soon.
It's a different deal and a good one if you have a large music library.
It sets up a server on your PC, and then gives a private access to it outside of your home, and your phone then sees all the way back to your PC from wherever you are and streams your music to your phone.
No subscriptions, no cloud storage, no swapping music on and off your SD card.
reiththestud
Android Enthusiast
I'm starting to believe that Google really needs either an iTunes equivalent or better cloud sync capabilities. I used to hate programs like iTunes which required you to sync your media instead of just dragging and dropping. Of course this was years ago when I had 10 gb of music on a 40 gb hard drive. Now that times have changed and I have more than enough space, I actually want a syncing program in order to keep everything up to date. I'm using Android Manager Wi-Fi for now and it's doing a great job. But it'd be nice if Google could come up with something innovative.
clb2196
Android Enthusiast
Subsonic sounds like simplify media-not sure if thats still around? Personally I throw everything on my pogoplug. 
And I just want to say, however much pogoolug says "cloud", its not really. You don't even have to leave your PC on, just pogoplug and hard drive, and your stuff stays on your own drive.
And I just want to say, however much pogoolug says "cloud", its not really. You don't even have to leave your PC on, just pogoplug and hard drive, and your stuff stays on your own drive.
Subsonic sounds like simplify media-not sure if thats still around? Personally I throw everything on my pogoplug.
And I just want to say, however much pogoolug says "cloud", its not really. You don't even have to leave your PC on, just pogoplug and hard drive, and your stuff stays on your own drive.
Seems like a Subsonic alternative, with a hardware add-on, to save on the home PC acting as a server - Pogoplug
Simplify Media was purchased by Google last year - not sure what they've done with it.
clb2196
Android Enthusiast
Yeah, it is similar. Currently there is a hardware add-on, but I'm one of the beta testers for new software that would eliminate that, and allow you to share from your PC directly.
So that's cool. But it lets you stream music and video, or access any files, or upload to it from anywhere, or share specific files or folders with people. Very convenient, and it eliminates the need to take up storage space on my Droid2 or Xoom or worry about synching between multiple devices.Ah. I just knew that it stopped working, but I wasn't using it at that point so I neverr bothered to find out why.
It's a favorite talking point of his:
"Well, Android should be able to sync up everything!"
What he fails to address, is that iTunes only syncs music, pictures, and movies. It does nothing else.
Those are all able to be done with an Android device, using a multitude of options. Applications which are core to pretty much every OS install out there: Windows Media Player (For those Winderz types), RhythmBox (For those Linux types), and iTunes (For those Apple types).
All three will handle that tasks exceptionally well.
Why should they? Core components of all the major OS's can handle the syncing of music, pictures, and movies just dandy. No need to have The Google Way. This is not an Apple walled garden.
Google is obviously working on Music sync (cloud) and Pictures already sync (cloud) having a desktop software would also be nice. I've owned both a Zune and an iPod Touch and I liked the Zune software much more than iTunes, but regardless, it was still nice to have something on the PC to help manage the phone a little bit better.
One of the main benefits to Android over an iPhone is the fact there is zero need for a PC.
iDevice: You require a PC to use it.
Android: Stand alone hardware.
kennychaffin
Android Enthusiast
Really?
The vast majority of consumers I consult for use a web-based mail, services like PhotoBucket (Or facebook) for pictures and videos, and use a web-based source for contacts.
Especially now that Android makes all of that a breeze.
And, for the content they need local, they have a PC for. Or, they download the music right to their phone, or use streaming services like Pandora or Rhapsody.
My own personal MP3 collection (About 42 GB worth) is collecting dust now. I do keep some on my phone, and I use RhythmBox to sync it from my desktop to my phone/tablet.
Unfortunately (Or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) we are moving towards keeping all of your stuff in "The Cloud", whether you like it or not.
The bottom line is with Android, you don't HAVE to have a PC. You can, and it can supplement the Android experience, but it's not needed.
Roze
Hiding behind a mystery
Yup, our smartphones are not just phones but miniature laptops!
Email lives in the cloud because hardly anyone runs a fulltime email server on their home computer.
Email lives "in the cloud", because people soon discovered the folly of downloading all of your email to a single computer, not because people don't have a mail server in their house
This differs from music, photos, and videos because this data almost always lives on a personaly computer. Only select files are uploaded to facebook, flickr, etc. I don't even know what service allows you to upload multiple full length movies to it for free.
Photobucket allows you to upload pretty much any video you make. Music and full-length movies are quickly leaving the local hard drives, and being replaced with services like Netflix.
My wife (A complete non-techy) doesn't keep ANY photos on her phone or PC anymore. They are all uploaded immediately (Like, right after they're taken) to Photobucket. Some get sent up to Facebook.
And, FWIW, Vimeo will allow up to a 500MB video to be uploaded
mrspeedmaster
Android Expert
People only use cloud services for sharing with others. I doubt anyone stores their primary home video or photo collection in a cloud. When i go out and take pictures for fun, one photo shoot is about 30GB. I shoot all RAW and my videos are un-compressed in ProRes4.222. On my last 4-day vacation, my photos and videos were 320GB.
There is no cost effective way to store 8TB of my photos anywhere. Each photo is about 20-30 megabytes. It would be glacially slow just to go from photo to photo unless they're re-sized.
Don't even go w/ video rips. My video personal "legit" video rips are another 4TB.
I also have uncompressed audio too. Each song is 30 megabytes
Cloud services like Flickr, Photobucket, Facebook are only good for sharing low-res versions of what you already have.
I'm curious to know where these "cloud advocates" actually store their primary stuff online?
clb2196
Android Enthusiast
I use my Pogoplug, which isn't technically in the cloud, but it's not on my device, either.
I prefer to store/sync as little as possible. Grooveshark or my Pogoplug for music. Photobuck, Facebook or my Pogoplug for pics. Play On or Amazon VOD for movies (I used to rip DVDs but I don't see the point anymore, I'd much rather stream).
I have HUGE photo and music libraries. It's just not realistic to store them on mobile devices (actually, not possible with any of the tablets available). I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position. Either we're going to move to storing things in the cloud, or wait til solid state drives get even cheaper and we can realistically have hundreds of GBs or so drive in mobile devices.
ETA: mrspeedmaster, where do you store everything? How do you decide what to sync? I think you'd be a pretty good candidate for a pogoplug. I'm not sure what you're saying you're looking for for storage on a tablet? since the thread is iPad vs Xoom I assume you're saying there's some way to manage these on an iPad that the Xoom can't?
I prefer to store/sync as little as possible. Grooveshark or my Pogoplug for music. Photobuck, Facebook or my Pogoplug for pics. Play On or Amazon VOD for movies (I used to rip DVDs but I don't see the point anymore, I'd much rather stream).
I have HUGE photo and music libraries. It's just not realistic to store them on mobile devices (actually, not possible with any of the tablets available). I'm sure I'm not the only one in this position. Either we're going to move to storing things in the cloud, or wait til solid state drives get even cheaper and we can realistically have hundreds of GBs or so drive in mobile devices.
ETA: mrspeedmaster, where do you store everything? How do you decide what to sync? I think you'd be a pretty good candidate for a pogoplug. I'm not sure what you're saying you're looking for for storage on a tablet? since the thread is iPad vs Xoom I assume you're saying there's some way to manage these on an iPad that the Xoom can't?
mrspeedmaster
Android Expert
I was replying to the comment that people's general computing will go to the cloud. Hence, the preference for Google services.
As to answer your other question,
I store all my stuff on a Linux NAS box I built myself. I stream everything I need myself. I don't care for transferring 1.2TB video files to only watch it once on my device. I have about 4TB of videos that I play at random. No transcoding. No need to copy or re-encode. Thats how I've been watching movies on iOS devices.
As for photos, I use iPhoto along w/Lightroom. Again, I have no need for removable sd cards because I would have to manually resize the photos in Photoshop and rename them so I can see them in the order I want. If I had 300 photos for an album, I can re-arrange them in iPhoto. iPhoto "optimizes" the photos so they look good on the iPad and renames the files so they are shown in the order I want. Instead of copying 100 20megabyte photos to an (3 gig) SD card, iPhoto probably syncs out 60MB (vs 2GB). So I want a photo in the middle of my album to show first, I don't need to rename it 00.jpg and 01.jpg so it shows in the order I want.
You can automate re-size photos in another app but the organization still requires you to manually rename the files due to the alphabetical sorting nature. With iPhoto, that is taken care of for you.
I've been looklng at the PogoPlug. I like the idea of a low-powered ARM based Linux plug computer device.
ghodzilla5150
Android Enthusiast
I am Tech Savy and don't use the "Cloud" for anything. I keep all my Music, Pictures, Videos on my PC. I don't want to have to rely on someone else's servers OR always need to have a network connection to get to MY data. I think that's crazy. Who says the people who are managing the "Cloud" are not looking at my Data. How secure is Cloud based storage? Just too many factors to get in the way as far as I am concerned.
mrspeedmaster
Android Expert
Funny you should ask. I have three laptops. I just picked up a new Thinkpad last week and will be getting the new MacBookPro w/ Thunderbolt.
I prefer tablets for general computing due to portability and battery life. I don't intend to use a tablet as my "main" device. For 70% of my day-to-day needs, a tablet works. For the 30% of other time, I rather sit at my desktop w/ my 30" screen.
No, most people use a "cloud" for email because they prefer their email to be accessible anywhere...
You'd be surprised. Methinks you really don't understand what "the cloud" is. It's ok, many CIO's and CEO's don't either
I can't see for the life of me why anyone would want to try and do so... Netflix streaming works FB. If it's not there, you can buy a COTS NAS that will allow streaming anywhere, given the correct client.
Why would you want to try and juggle movies on a mobile device? Do you like have 5 copies of everything? Me? I prefer one copy, accessible where I am.
Oh, look at that! If you do it that way, you've just started your own "cloud"
If you have that sort of demand, no mobile device will suit your needs.
Me? I store most of my files on Amazon's cloud service. For pictures, me (And most people I know) use a private photobucket for those. For pics they want to share, they upload to Facebook.
People's general computing will go to the cloud. Email is already there, movie rentals are going strong there, and Photobucket is adding somewhere near 60GB per minute of photos. Services like Rhapsody and Pandora are gaining steam as well.
You've just built the startings for your own personal cloud... Aren't you enjoying the idea of "One copy, accessible anywhere"?
And from the sounds of it, no mobile device will serve your needs. Mobile devices wont serve many people's needs. Case in point, I'm not expecting to be able to do development work on a tablet. Or, any serious music editing. I have a desktop for that (Well, a desktop replacement notebook), and use Amazon's cloud for most storage.
However, you will find, most users do not ever need 2 terabyte HD's...
If you are tech savvy, you would know exactly how to secure your data out in "the cloud".
Nobody at Amazon could ever see anything I've stored there. Not unless they lease a couple of supercomputers for the next 1000 years or so.
mrspeedmaster
Android Expert
Agreed. Privacy is the biggest deal. I have to admit I use ZumoDrive and DropBox for non-critical things. I store stuff that I don't consider important but I don't rely on them.
As for security, I don't know. The biggest source of hackers that hack our company networks come from Amazon EC2 cloud services. People rent virtual servers to do their bots,spam and hacking and the IPs always point to Amazon. Amazon TOS people know my name when I call to report abusers.
mrspeedmaster
Android Expert
Thats bad reasoning. I had 200 GB worth of music when the 1st iPod only supported 5GB of music. That didn't stop me or many others from buying mp3 players. I don't expect to have all my data with me all the time. I just want an easy way to sync/copy what I need.
When SDcards can have 100MB read/write or approach 300MB of transfers, I will consider a tablet as my primary device.
Now, they're complementary.
I rather manage my own cloud than let someone else do it. I do remote rsync off-site and I have about 3 backups of everything I do. I even have my own disaster-recovery procedure. Thats just for my personal stuff.
Thats fine if your device can handle the original file w/out transcoding.
If you put a high profile 720p file in a cloud, un-touch, which tablet will play them w/out transcoding.
Same for your phone.