iCloud and Dropbox

At first glance, the iCloud announcements today seemed to provide an Apple-sanctioned answer to everything that Dropbox has always provided. Cloud storage, ability to sync app data (but at the system level, just like Twitter!) and well over 2 free GB of storage.

One thing stuck out to me though, and it had to do with Steve’s comments about how hard they’ve been working to obscure the filesystem. I don’t think Apple is ever going to provide a way for users to browse their iCloud files and folders, either with Finder or any other app. Apple is slowly moving us away from having to even consider the file system. iTunes is your front end for music. iPhoto your front end for photos. Their vision is to have native apps that specialize in handling the file system for their own file types.

I wonder if my kids are ever going to use the term “file”. They’re already growing up with computers they assume they can touch — iPhones, iPads, Kinect to name a few. Even Apple TV, with the Remote app, becomes a touch-screen at a distance. All of these interfaces are more familiar to my kids than any Mac. Or, “desktop” I should say.

Ultimately I don’t think filesystems are ever going away at the developer level. I predict that the Mac will live on for decades in the form of the machine you use to make apps for other machines. Who knows. But at the very least, the “power users” will always use the file system.

So, I think Dropbox is going to live on. It’s a “power user” thing and a great (and free) secondary cloud. iCloud is going to be transparent to users. Dropbox will fit in right next to it.

Now I only wonder what will happen to Things.