Michael Grothaus 24/04/2018 - 9:54am

iCloud has come a long way, but can go further. Here are four ways Apple can make iCloud Drive even better!

When you think of “cloud storage” Dropbox probably comes to mind first. They weren’t the genesis of the cloud storage tidal wave that has swept computing over the last decade, but they did it best–and in many respects still do.

But of course in the decade since Dropbox came onto the scene, plenty of competitors have cropped up like Box, Microsoft’s OneDrive, Google Drive, and Apple’s iCloud Drive. It’s Apple’s solution we want to explore here because if you own any Apple device, you are given automatic access to 5GB of free iCloud Drive storage.

iCloud has come a long way in the last several years. It was first primarily a service for mail notes, and reminders that gave users the ability to sync the same across various Apple devices. Then Apple added iCloud Photo Library, which keeps a users photo library synced across devices. But most recently iCloud has moved into the traditional cloud storage space dominated by Dropbox. Apple calls it’s Dropbox competitor iCloud Drive.

iCloud Drive: What Is It?

In short, iCloud Drive is Apple’s cloud storage solution. Like Dropbox, you can drag any file into your iCloud Drive folder on your Mac and it will be instantly uploaded to the cloud and be available on all your Mac, iOS, and Windows PC devices–as well as accessible through any web browser.

As with Dropbox and other cloud storage solutions, you can arrange your files in iCloud Drive into folders and subfolders and navigate them as you would any file system. Any changes made to the files are synced automatically across devices.

Sounds pretty Dropbox-like already, doesn’t it? The problem is, iCloud Drive isn’t a good enough solution yet for those who want to ditch Dropbox and solely use Apple’s cloud storage solution for all their cloud file management. Here’s how Apple could change that.

iCloud Drive: A Better Web Interface

While most cloud storage users use Dropbox’s or iCloud Drive’s file management solutions on their Mac or PC desktop–in other words, navigating their iCloud Drive or Dropbox folder via the Mac’s Finder or Windows’ Explorer–both services allow you to navigate your folders and files through a web browser.

iCloud Drive, accessed via iCloud.com on a web browser, arguably has nicer folder icons, but you can only view those folders and their files as big icons. You can’t view them in List view in your web browser as you can on your desktop.

Admittedly, this is a small cosmetic gripe, but for power users, it’s much easier to navigate cloud storage files when you have multiple choices for the type of views you want.

iCloud Drive: Android Support

Props to Apple for not only supporting iCloud Drive natively on the Mac and iOS, but on Windows PC’s as well. The company actually makes a Windows iCloud Drive application that allows iCloud Drive users to natively access their iCloud Drive files on through their PC’s file system.

Unfortunately, that’s where third-party platform support for iCloud Drive ends. Unlike Dropbox, Apple doesn’t bother to make an Android app for iCloud Drive. True, many iCloud Drive users are probably iOS users too, but many could still own Android devices as well–why not make access their iCloud Drive files just as easy on that platform?

And don’t say Apple would never make an Android app–they already do with their Apple Music app for Android.

iCloud Drive: A More Robust App

Speaking of apps, on iOS users access iCloud Drive through the new Files app in iOS 11. The app is actually pretty robust, supporting not only iCloud Drive, but other cloud services (hence the “Files” name; it’s not just for iCloud Drive).

But Dropbox’s iOS app still has a better feature set. I’m specifically talking about two things: first, the ability to marking a file for offline support. This means the latest version of that file is always downloaded on all your devices so you can access it even when you don’t have an Internet connection.

Second, the Dropbox app has a nice scanner function. Click the scan button and the Dropbox app lets you take a picture of a document that then gets scanned into the app as a PDF. It’s an incredibly useful tool for receipts and such–and one the Files app should adopt for iCloud Drive.

iCloud Drive: Better Storage Pricing Plans

Finally, Apple could be all the more competitive if they offer slightly better iCloud storage plans. To be clear, Apple already offers more plans and pricing structures than Dropbox does–but they could be better. Right now everyone gets 5GB free storage–but that’s usually taken up by iCloud iOS device backups.

50GB of storage will cost £0.79 a month, 200GB is £2.49 a month, and 2TB is £6.99 a month. Truth be told, those prices aren’t bad. But Apple recently gave all students 200GB of storage available for free. Why not at least move all consumers to 50GB of free storage then?

Then offer 200GB for £0.79 a month, 1TB for £2.49 a month, and kick Dropbox’s ass with 3TB of storage for £6.99 a month.