Cloud services and Nokia N9

The cloud services market seems to be much populated by now, and it is quite ignorant to think that Google is the undisputed leader of the race and the only reasonable cloud choice. When your mobile phone is Nokia N9, choosing a cloud service should not be motivated merely by the amount of available cloud space, but also the availability (and quality) of applications for downloading and uploading files to and from your phone. Many of the client applicatons available for Nokia N9 are unofficial and don't lack glitches.

There is also another side to the story. Nokia seems to want to jump on the cloud bandwagon too, with its Nokia Air tailored cloud experience in some foreseeable future. The information, however, has to be taken with a pinch of salt for the time being as nothing has been officially announced yet. The information on the purported service comes merely from a leaked YouTube video that appeared several months ago on the net:

Chances are that, if Nokia Air service ever becomes official, it will have to become available for all Nokia smartphones, so our beloved Nokia N9 should get an official dedicated app with sharing plugin. We're keeping our fingers crossed, then.

Let's have a look at my availability comparison of cloud client apps for Nokia N9:

1. Dropbox

Dropbox grabbed me with its simplicity and ease of use, so it was my personal choice for PC. It is definitely the most popular cloud storage, and also boasts most support from Nokia N9 developers, so chances are you might be better off considering this one as first. Nokia N9 update to PR1.3 gives you Dropbox plugin onboard, but this only lets you upload (share) stuff from the phone, so forget about browsing your cloud's files from the mobile phone screen or downloading files. 

There are, however, lots of unofficial client apps for Dropbox that will come in handy: DropN9, CuteBox N9, Dropian, FilesPlus and File Sink. Those allow browsing cloud files, uploading and downloading. Dropian comes in two versions, the free and the paid one. Out of all these available I liked FileSink and Dropian the most, but mind you most of them offer similar functionality (FileSink wins for me with swell design, though).

Dropbox is my personal choice for Nokia N9 as it is the only App that integrates with the system and lets you share any file from Nokia N9's context menu, see screen below:

2. Box.net

Currently there is just one unofficial Box.net beta client for N9, HarBox (Har for Harmattan, supposedly). It has been developed by Cuong Le and the beta version can be downloaded from Nokia Developer Projects. Here's a direct link to the .deb installation file. Download it, copy to your N9 (bluetooth or USB) and run with an N9 file manager (e.g. FileBox) to install. Remember to switch on "Allow installations from non-Store sources" in Settings -> Applications -> Installatons. Read more on installing non-Store applications here.

The project is in its early development stage and already looks great, so I hope the final version will be one of the best. The interface is simple, but fully functional, it supports uploading, downloading and displays thumbnails, which is something you have to pay for in SkyFiles.

  

3. SkyDrive

SkyDrive is supported on Nokia N9 by an unofficial client called SkyFiles. The client comes in two versions, the free and the paid one. SkyFiles Pro (the paid one) offers password saving, copying, moving, thumbnails, uploading of all filetypes, three views, and English and German language versions.

SkyFiles doesn't seem to have much competition, it is currently the only SkyDrive client for the N9. This shouldn't really worry SkyDrive users, because the app offers anything you need and the interface is great.

 

4. Google Drive

Google Drive is supported by MeeDocs client, a simple (not to say simplistic) but fully functional app for Nokia N9. It allows browsing, downloading and uploading of files. The interface, however, needs a bit of tweaking - I never found it particularly comfortable compared to other cloud clients.

There isn't however much alternative - it's currently the only working Google Drive client in the Nokia Store.

5. Sugarsync

I haven't found any Sugarsync client for Nokia N9. 

The following chart comes courtesy of GsmArena and presents a comparison of most popular cloud services (and their availability on Nokia N9):

	GOOGLE DRIVE	DROPBOX	SUGARSYNC	SKYDRIVE	BOX.NET
Free space	5GB	2GB	5GB	7GB	5GB
Paid space (monthly)	25GB – $2.49 100GB – $4.99 200 GB – $9.99 400 GB – $19.99 1000GB – $49.99	50GB – $9.99 100GB – $19.99	30GB – $4.99 60GB – $9.99 100GB – $14.99 250GB – $24.99 500GB – $39.99	20GB – $0.83 50GB – $2.08 100GB – $4.16	25GB – $9.99 50GB – $19.99
Desktop client	Windows Mac OS X -	Windows Mac OS X Linux	Windows Mac OS X -	Windows Mac OS X -	Windows (paid) Mac OS X (paid) -
Availability of Nokia N9 Application(s)	Yes, unofficial app MeeDocs	Yes, Dropbox is  officially supported  in PR1.3 with sharing  plugin. Unofficial  clients: DropN9,  CuteBox N9,  Dropian,  FilesPlus,   File Sink	No	Yes, with SkyFiles,  an unofficial SkyDrive client	Yes, an unofficial Beta HarBox app
Upload/Download From Nokia N9	Yes/Yes	Yes/No* (Yes, with an unofficial app)	No/No	Yes/Yes	Yes/Yes
Shared folders with permissions and password	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
File linking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Folder linking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Security	N/A	SSL AES-256 bit encryption	SSL 128-bit AES encryption	SSL	SSL AES-256 bit encryption
Free ways to increase space	None	Referrals, up to 16GB	Referrals	Promos, up to 25GB	Promos, up to 50GB
Maximum file size	10GB	Unlimited	Unlimited	2GB	25MB (free) 1GB (paid)