Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dropbox introduces new API features

blog.dropbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 38 posts

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#23

Post by johnrob »

[deleted] wrote: post #22
ryguytilidie wrote: post #18

Man, I really don't want to come off as a hater at all, but I never got the dropbox hype. They seriously have a developer conference now? Yikes.

[deleted]

Nothing done at that level of scale is trivial. Also, the founders are in pretty rare company given the success of dropbox - definitely something to aspire to.

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#24

Post by area51org »

Selfcommit wrote: post #13
area51org wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a step toward evolution: Dropbox becoming a platform and not just a cloudy app. I wonder, though, about the amount of storage available at the free level -- is it enough to support a true platform?

isn't dropbox built on top of amazon? Isn't it a platform on a platform at that point?

Yes, but that doesn't mean it can't work and add value. Heroku is built on EC2, for example.

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#25

Post by bsimpson »

It seems strange to me that they are bragging about syncing between mobile and the web, but the only web SDK they provide is for JavaScript - I can't even find REST documentation for the Datastore API.

I love the idea of cloud apps that use user-provided datastores. It makes it both cheaper for a startup (because they can crowdsource their data storage) and easier for users to control what data services have about them. Google Drive already provides a service whereby I can store a user's data in his Drive account without cluttering his filesystem with my app's metadata. Dropbox Datastores sounds like a similar feature, but it's way less appealing to me if I can't talk to it from my backend.

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#26

Post by mikeash »

ryguytilidie wrote: post #18

Man, I really don't want to come off as a hater at all, but I never got the dropbox hype. They seriously have a developer conference now? Yikes.

Dropbox is incredibly easy and convenient to use. It's very simple, and that's what makes it great. It's simple enough for almost anyone to use. I've pointed tech-unsavvy friends and family at Dropbox with great success. It's just a folder on your computer that magically syncs to all your other computers too.

Now, there's nothing in that which justifies having a developer conference. I definitely do not understand that. But the Dropbox service itself deserves the praise it gets.

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#27

Post by epochwolf »

danielsiders wrote: post #19
joshuaellinger wrote: post #2

Can anyone who uses the Dropbox API tell me if these features are significant? From my .Net developer's point of view, I am not seeing why these aren't just weak versions of the Azure storage capabilities or Amazon's S3. It's nice to be able to target DropBox as a storage location but that's a pretty rare use-case for me. Especially since their security store is incomplete.

I think fundamentally Dropbox's move away from the filesystem by exposing an API like this and through application acquisitions (music and mail) is about trying to become the Apple of personal data. Dropbox has done a phenomenal job of taking a complex challenge (file sync) and making an incredibly simple user experience. Extending that strategy into other common tasks with new and purchased apps could be very succes…

> This kind of functionality needs to be delivered as a protocol so users can choose service providers who compete on price, features, and privacy instead of being citizens of a particular platform (Facebook, Apple, Google, MSFT, or increasingly Dropbox).

How would this benefit dropbox?

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#28

Post by dunham »

foobarqux wrote: post #12
andrewmunsell wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, from a quick look at the Datastore API, they provide conflict resolution and offline support, which are pretty big if you're working on a mobile application.

How do they do actual conflict resolution? The example they give is address changed on one device and e-mail on another. That isn't a conflict.

For details, see:

https://www.dropbox.com/developers/datastore/tutorial/ios#co...

They have a few naive conflict resolution rules that you can choose from. The granularity is per field. They do have an option that attempts to be smart about array-valued fields.

Re: Dropbox introduces new API features

#29

Post by jzcoder »

bsimpson wrote: post #25

It seems strange to me that they are bragging about syncing between mobile and the web, but the only web SDK they provide is for JavaScript - I can't even find REST documentation for the Datastore API. I love the idea of cloud apps that use user-provided datastores. It makes it both cheaper for a startup (because they can crowdsource their data storage) and easier for users to control what data services have about th…

I agree. The first thing I did when I saw this announcement was look for the REST API. Surely, those existing platform specific libraries are built on a REST API, so why not document and release them.
Post reply on HN