Windows Phone App of the Day: SkyDrive
If you’ve watched an Apple commercial in the last six months or so, you can almost definitely guess what this App is all about. SkyDrive for Windows Phone 7 isn’t just for people with iPhone envy. It allows you to store all of your files in one place, so you can access them any time from nearly any device.
Windows Phone has built-in access to SkyDrive from the Office and Pictures hub. Automatically upload your pictures and easily manage and share your documents for easy access all in one place.
Pros
- Free!
- Access of SkyDrive content, including files shared with you
- View recently used documents
- Upload photos and videos from your phone and Facebook albums
- Share files and photos via email or copy/paste link to file
- Manage your files — move, delete, rename, and create new folders
- Control what documents and photos are public using “Public” folder
- Take photos to share immediately
Cons
- Network connection needed to sign in / view and upload files
- Capacity limited to 7GB
How It Works
- Download SkyDrive from the “Tools + Productivity” section of your Marketplace
- Open SkyDrive from your App List
- Log in using your WIndows Live ID (You will only need to do this once)
- Click on the “+” at the bottom of the screen to upload a file from your Windows Phone
- Upload photos from your Facebook photo albums
- Click on the “Camera” symbol in the bottom center of the screen to take a photo to share immediately using your phone’s camera App
- Choose your file layout button in the bottom center of your screen
- Select the “Tasks” symbol to download documents and photos
- Click the “File Download” icon at the bottom of your screen to download a single file or entire folder to your Windows Phone
- Click on the “…” symbol to create a new folder, refresh SkyDrive, and edit your Settings
- Select “Settings” to view your available capacity or to sign out
Conclusion
Always committed to true and honest journalism (heyo!), I used this App this morning to transfer some documents and photos from my old computer to SkyDrive. I couldn’t transfer all of my photos because of the capacity limit, which I found annoying because I have literally tons of photos stored on my junky old MacBook. Still, get past the idea that the branding pales in comparison to the uber-trendy “Cloud” for iOS, SkyDrive is a pretty straightforward and handy tool that allows you to access and share your files and photos from anywhere at any time with ease.
