{"id":43839,"date":"2024-06-24T15:53:44","date_gmt":"2024-06-24T19:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=43839"},"modified":"2024-06-28T15:20:55","modified_gmt":"2024-06-28T19:20:55","slug":"icloud-drive-dropbox-and-proton-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2024\/06\/24\/icloud-drive-dropbox-and-proton-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"iCloud Drive, Dropbox, and Proton Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ryan Christoffel<\/a> (AppleInsider<\/a>, MacRumors<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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The problem is, Apple “intelligently” decides which files can remain stored in local cache, and will make decisions to remove certain downloads without telling you. So when you need to access a given file—say, on an airplane with no connection—you might find that the file has been sent back to the cloud and is no longer available.<\/p>\n

iPadOS 18 changes that.<\/p>\n

Not only on the iPad but also the iPhone in iOS 18, you can long-press on a file or folder and find a new ‘Keep Downloaded’ button in the menu.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Francisco Tolmasky<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Something lost in this “Dropbox is a feature, not a product” story is that today, more than 10 years later, iCloud Drive (Apple’s implementation of this “feature”) still sucks. And Dropbox is arguably only falling behind because macOS has made it increasingly difficult to make a 3rd party syncing solution that “just works.” So maybe the real lesson is that Apple, like Game of Thrones’ Littlefinger, “would see the [OS] burn, as long as they can be king of the ashes”.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

The two main problems I’ve had with iCloud Drive are files not uploading promptly and needless eviction of recently downloaded files that I want to keep. The former seems to have gotten better over the last year, and it sounds like iOS 18 and Sequoia will address the latter.<\/p>\n\n

Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Unexpected behaviour is seen when the user turns off the setting to put Desktop & Documents Folders into iCloud Drive. Instead of moving the folders back from the iCloud Drive location to their original location, macOS creates fresh and empty folders in the regular Home folder. Although the contents of the previous Desktop and Documents folders are retained in iCloud Drive, when seen from their Mac, the user may believe that those entire contents have been deleted, despite an alert that tries to explain what will happen. At least this time the user is offered a way back to reconsider their action, although it’s unclear what other option they might have.<\/p>\n

When turned off, those folders are removed with all their contents, which remain in iCloud Drive, but are absent from the empty local Documents and Desktop folders.<\/p>\n

The saving grace to this counter-intuitive behaviour is that, despite their apparent movement, the files themselves have remained within the same volume throughout the process of ‘moving’ to iCloud Drive, and ‘vanishing’ on their return journey. As they retain the same inode numbers at each stage of these processes, when they’re finally ‘moved’ manually back into ~\/Documents and ~\/Desktop, they have remained intact, complete with all their extended attributes and any saved versions. Thus their ‘movements’ preserve both data and metadata at all times.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Tim Hardwick<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Apple wants iPhone and iPad users to be able to format external drives connected to their device, without the need for a Mac, based on the latest find in the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 developer betas (via MacStories<\/a><\/em>).<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

MereCivilian<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Anyway, I gave Proton Drive a real go but from the get go, it was disappointing at best. It took three attempts to transfer 6GB files from Dropbox to Proton Drive. The upload and download speeds was terrible. At this point, I went seeking for answers on Reddit and what I discovered was anecdotes from many Proton users on Proton Drive is just not ready. I should have done my research first.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n