Dropbox is one of the most important productivity tools I use these days. Having my files, documents and images in Dropbox means I can have access to any and all of my files no matter where I am and no matter what device I happen to be using on any particular day. That’s the reason I keep almost all my active documents in my Dropbox account.
Side note: I also have a huge folder in Dropbox entitled “Not Kept Local”. It has all the files, movies and pictures I want to safeguard but don’t need on a daily basis. That folder is IN Dropbox, but I no longer sync it to my “storage challenged” MacBook Pro retina.
Many of the apps and applications I use on a daily basis have the ability to leverage Dropbox’s power and, in recent months, Dropbox itself has gained new functionality. That makes it an even more powerful tool for any of us who use multiple devices.
Now Dropbox has made it clear that they want to be your solution not just for storing images, but for consuming and sharing them as well. Interestingly, while they are making a big deal out of the new “Create and Share Albums” feature, they are also acknowledging that it only serves to make Dropbox “a little bit better”; I think it is a little bit more than just a little bit.
When you update Dropbox, it will once again welcome you to the application and Dropbox photos. It makes clear the fact that the update now allows you to “view, organize and share” any and all images stored in Dropbox.
You can now create albums, and to make things even easier you can drag and drop images into the new albums.
And once the albums are created, you can easily share them with others or (if you are so inclined) make the album public.
For example, I went into my Dropbox folder and selected all the images I took of the new rugged Pelican iPhone case that arrived for review the other day. I had taken pictures of the case and then had an epiphany … Perry and Stacy were the perfect Gear Diary writers to put this new tough case through its paces. I dropped the case off with them over the weekend, but now I wanted to get the pictures to them to save them some time and effort. I selected all of those images, created a new album and then…
Sent the album over to Perry; it was fast, convenient and easy.
Sure, you can do something similar with many other services. For example, Apple’s Photostream by creating a shared Photostream. The key to this new Dropbox functionality is that it is simple to use, and it is universal. Sure you can access pictures through one of the various platform-specific Dropbox applications but you can also access the pictures through a browser. That sort of universality makes this a compelling way to share your pictures with others. You can check out Dropbox for free, by clicking here.