Brazilians unveil Microsoft SkyDrive's secret – revealing pics

Brazilian website Gemind has revealed screenshots claimed to show a desktop version for MAC OS and Windows of Microsoft's SkyDrive. Currently Windows and Mac users can access Skydrive – Microsoft's cloud storage for files, photos, music, etc – through a browser and it's clunky compared to, say, the simple Dropbox icon for …

[Kevin Fairhurst]

Issue with the screengrabs?

Both appear to show the same thing; suspect the one purporting to show the prices hasn't been correctly linked to!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm...

If only their Hotmail still worked properly on Macs.

[Dave's Jubblies]

@ The Reg...

Please stop referring to the mythical 'itv' product in this manner...

The use of this term in various media will just give strength to apple should they try and strongarm the actual ITV into letting them use it... similar to what they did with apple music...' no sir, totally different areas... no over lap at all.... for now...'

If they can get iTV into general use, even in the UK, then they will undoubtedly use that in the courst or wherever to persuade them 'welll everyone calls it that already m'lud'...

[CmdrX3]

Re: @ The Reg...

The trouble with that logic is that everyone also calls the TV channel ITV already anyway. Even here in NI where it's actually called UTV people still call it ITV. There's also this..

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/televisions/itv-warns-apple-off-itv-name-50006932/

[Anonymous Coward]

WebDAV?

Errrm, didn't Microsoft come up with WebDAV back in the 1800s to do just this sort of thing?

It has the benefit of being an open standard, so there are already several clients to choose from on the OS du jour.

[Tzael]

Not news

Uhh this isn't new. I'm in the UK and I've had full access to SkyDrive via my Windows Live account. Those screenshots look identical - just wrap a web browser around the image and you get exactly what I've been seeing in my Windows Live account for months. If these are from a desktop app then it's simply a web browser control pointed to the Windows Live web site.

[Craig (well, I was until The Reg changed it to Craig 16)]

Re: Not news

Really not news.

I've had the Live Mesh client pointing to the "cloud" SkyDrive storage for ages now, at least since late 2010. It's an outstanding little thing that syncs my files between my PC, Mac and the online storage.

Bit of a process hog on Mac OSX 10.7 but still works fine.

[flying_walrus]

It'll be interesting to see whether OS suppliers allow these (presumablly WebDAV) vendors easy access to the Open/Save dialog boxes... Which is IMHO the real barrier to adoption by grandma.

I read somewhere that OS X.viii (the forth coming MILF release, now out in developer preview) has a "save to iCloud" feature prominently displayed in said dialogs. Will "save to SilverLight" be far behind?

[Greg J Preece]

Lots of downvoting in this thread. We got a bot around here?

Anyway, my arse that's a desktop client. Look at the rendering on the checkboxes - that's a webpage, that is. Carved up version of the Hotmail style interface. If it's a desktop app, why not show the window frame?

[Tzael]

Starting to think the anti-MS crowd will downvote anything these days!

[Kevin Fairhurst]

Re: Downvoting

That'll explain why a comment I made about an error in the original article was downvoted three times, then!

[Efros]

Skydrive

is mapped as a network disk drive on my machine.

[Jason Hindle]

Already works on Mac

Office 2011 comes with Microsoft Document Connect.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clunky perhaps, but usable

SkyDrive might be a little hard to use when all you have is the browser. But as someone above also mentioned; you can easily install Windows Live Mesh and have that synchronize a directory on your computer onto SkyDrive. That makes its use a lot more pleasant.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some MS software already provides native support for SkyDrive. Office 2010 for example can also save file directly onto SkyDrive. The Windows phone has also been setup with SkyDrive in mind. So IMO its only logical that eventually some sort of desktop client should show up.

[David Eddleman]

Can't compare Skydrive with Dropbox

Dropbox is meant for rapid movement of small files, via a drag-and-drop interface. Like text files, music, and more. SkyDrive is meant more for long-term storage of many things, such as office documents, team projects and more. Comparing them is apples-and-oranges. Yeah there's some citrus in both, and are both fruits, but they ultimately are different things.

[El Andy]

Re: Can't compare Skydrive with Dropbox

The official version of this announcement on the Building Windows 8 blog pretty much crushes tht theory, with a rich client coming that basically provides exactly the same functionality as Dropbox to Vista, 7 and 8 and extra Metro functionality to 8.

Personally I shall shamelessly use both, if sites want to give me free storage I'm happy to use it up for them. :-)

[Andres]

Can't compare etc.

Skydrive is of no use to us oldie worldie Win XP users (gotta love corporate laptops) and even if I could use it, the 50mb maximum file size is a showstopper. So, as you say David, oranges & lemons (spot which one is the lemon).

[The Man Who Fell To Earth]

Just remember folks...

Store it in the cloud with a US company and it can be subpoenaed without your knowledge.

Ain't computers great?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux?

Great that they support both Mac and Windows -- but dropbox also supports Linux and all my mobile devices, so maybe I will just stick with Dropbox

[Graham Bartlett]

Pics?

So where does the naked woman on the headline pic come into the story?

[Anonymous Coward]

This article was accompanied by a picture of a naked woman and it's about storage? That's fraudulent advertising! I've wasted not only the time it took me to uncover the hoax, but also the time it took me to register this account!