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The Dropbox API

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: The Dropbox API

#31

Post by vijaydev »

bryanh wrote: post #20

I've been working with the Dropbox API (among MANY others...) for my early stage startup Snapier ( http://snapier.com/ ), and I must say it is a pleasure to work with. Very sensible and logical. I can't say that about all API's... Another example of how Dropbox is gonna keep its momentum. With it, it should be rather straightforward to bake in some cool iCloud type of preview/revision stuff into native apps.

In Snapier, it will be better if you have a message why you are asking for emails. More importantly, provide a message which is a little more than "Thank you very much" when I enter my email. Though I got an email within a second, it will be more user friendly to give a "We'll connect back soon" in the site itself.

Also, in the email you mention 'check us out on Twitter' but fail to provide the twitter id.

Just my two cents. If any of that sounds badly phrased, I blame the clock for showing 3 AM. Cheers :)

Re: The Dropbox API

#32

Post by count »

gabrielh wrote: post #28
tomjen3 wrote: post #25

This is interesting although I really really wished they had used oauth v2 since it is so much better and is designed to give a first class experience on mobile devices. In fact I can't think of any good reason to use the older version but I would like to hear if there are anybody who has different experiences since I haven't worked much with it.

OAuth 2 is way simpler but requires HTTPS, which may have overhead at scale.

Everything has overhead at scale. I think the 'HTTPS is hard on computers' stage has passed by though...its just not that computationally intensive on modern hardware.

Re: The Dropbox API

#33

Post by bryanh »

vijaydev wrote: post #31
bryanh wrote: post #20

I've been working with the Dropbox API (among MANY others...) for my early stage startup Snapier ( http://snapier.com/ ), and I must say it is a pleasure to work with. Very sensible and logical. I can't say that about all API's... Another example of how Dropbox is gonna keep its momentum. With it, it should be rather straightforward to bake in some cool iCloud type of preview/revision stuff into native apps.

In Snapier, it will be better if you have a message why you are asking for emails. More importantly, provide a message which is a little more than "Thank you very much" when I enter my email. Though I got an email within a second, it will be more user friendly to give a "We'll connect back soon" in the site itself. Also, in the email you mention 'check us out on Twitter' but fail to provide the twitter id. Just my tw…

Thanks for the feedback. It was very slapdash but we hope to replace it with something more... robust soon.

Re: The Dropbox API

#34

Post by kisielk »

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't the way the app authentication works preclude it from being used for client-side apps?

For example in https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#pyth... you set both APP_KEY and APP_SECRET. Of course anyone can read the source and get these, so what keeps them from impersonating your app by using the same key and secret?

For iOS and Android this is probably less of an issue, but someone could probably glean the values by searching your binary.

Re: The Dropbox API

#35

Post by johns »

kisielk wrote: post #34

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't the way the app authentication works preclude it from being used for client-side apps? For example in https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#pyth... you set both APP_KEY and APP_SECRET. Of course anyone can read the source and get these, so what keeps them from impersonating your app by using the same key and secret? For iOS and Android this is probably less o…

Before the redesign they had a page that explained the API is not for desktop client use, only mobile and web apps. I can't find the new equivalent, but maybe I'm missing something.

For mobile you can embed the key and secret, because they only work in combination with someone authenticating their account to use your app https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#ios

Re: The Dropbox API

#36

Post by chaosprophet »

bryanh wrote: post #33
vijaydev wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Snapier, it will be better if you have a message why you are asking for emails. More importantly, provide a message which is a little more than "Thank you very much" when I enter my email. Though I got an email within a second, it will be more user friendly to give a "We'll connect back soon" in the site itself. Also, in the email you mention 'check us out on Twitter' but fail to provide the twitter id. Just my tw…

Thanks for the feedback. It was very slapdash but we hope to replace it with something more... robust soon.

Also, it would be nice to have a better description of what Snapier does exactly. 'A simple way to automatically sync data between Skype and Facebook'? What kind of data would I want to sync between those two services? I read your blog and if I understand correctly, Snapier would be something that get's my credentials for a bunch of API's and then interconnects them, so that I don't have to roll out a script to do it. If my understanding is correct, then this is not very well reflected in your landing page.

Re: The Dropbox API

#38

Post by bryanh »

chaosprophet wrote: post #36
bryanh wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the feedback. It was very slapdash but we hope to replace it with something more... robust soon.

Also, it would be nice to have a better description of what Snapier does exactly. 'A simple way to automatically sync data between Skype and Facebook'? What kind of data would I want to sync between those two services? I read your blog and if I understand correctly, Snapier would be something that get's my credentials for a bunch of API's and then interconnects them, so that I don't have to roll out a script to do it…

You do understand correctly, and we think this is a big challenge for us. We are trying to stay away from "technical" terms (save for the API nod in the name) but stay light on the marketing speak. I could go on and on about our plans here... but, to cut it short, you are absolutely right, it isn't reflected correctly on the landing page.

Re: The Dropbox API

#39

Post by kisielk »

johns wrote: post #35
kisielk wrote: post #34

Maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't the way the app authentication works preclude it from being used for client-side apps? For example in https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#pyth... you set both APP_KEY and APP_SECRET. Of course anyone can read the source and get these, so what keeps them from impersonating your app by using the same key and secret? For iOS and Android this is probably less o…

Before the redesign they had a page that explained the API is not for desktop client use, only mobile and web apps. I can't find the new equivalent, but maybe I'm missing something. For mobile you can embed the key and secret, because they only work in combination with someone authenticating their account to use your app https://www.dropbox.com/developers/start/authentication#ios

I understand that, but what keeps someone from pulling your key and secret out of your app and creating a trojan app? For example the app could look like your app, use the same key and secret, still authenticate as the user, but then steal their data and upload it to a third party server.

That may not be easily doable with iOS since Apple does a good job of curating their market, but I can imagine someone making a fake app like this that runs on Android and getting in to the Android market.

Re: The Dropbox API

#40

Post by audionerd »

If you can now run automated searches across multiple Dropbox accounts, think what that does for aggregating file storage and sharing.

Imagine how easy it would be to build a multi-user pseudo-P2P file search/share app on top of Dropbox now.

Or imagine when a user can sync/export their settings from a "cloud" service to a SQLite file in their Dropbox automatically.

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