Deprecating the Sync and Datastore APIs
We added the Datastore API in the summer of 2013 to support syncing structured (non-file) data with Dropbox. The Sync API and Datastore API are both part of the same mobile SDKs.
Since its launch almost two years ago, the Datastore API hasn’t seen the adoption we had hoped for. While some developers have adopted this API and loved it, the raw numbers show that it wasn’t used by very many apps.
The Datastore API is somewhat unique in that it, unlike the Core API, deals with non-file data, so we’re working directly with individual developers to help them migrate to an alternative. Existing apps built using the Datastore API will continue to work in the meantime.
I’m not aware of a good replacement for the Datastore API.
With their Datastore API Dropbox, in my mind, appeared as the definitive place to store your data. That also gave it nice features to contrast it to the flock of cloud storage services out there. It felt like it is the leader. Without Datastore what is the differentiating element of their API?!
Removing it dumbs down the service, why destroy something that works? Well, another example that cloud computing is, to a certain extent, a trap.
I admit that I'm biased. I was working for the last year on a hobby project using their API: https://github.com/pmarinov/rrss
There is an alternative, it is Google Drive's RealTime API. That is what I started migrating to a few days ago.