Guest writer Ricky Cadden has been using the free SoonR, a service that runs on your home desktop and gives you remote access to all your documents and photos, without having to store them on your memory card. Cool idea, here's his review.
Read on in the full article.
To give you my opinion on this topic.
For me personally, your vision of an always connected device is absolutely horrible.
What I love about the S60 phones is their ability to be a "fat client": They have their own processing power, static memory, and connectivity options. Or simpler: an S60 phone can live on its own, doesn't need any computer to be feeded with software or content. Even without network connection it is an useful device, you are able to view and create documents and content (read: video, audio, and of course photos).
That's why I thought Nokia's computer 2.0 campaign is so ridiculous: it only mentioned something the fans of the S60 platform already knew.
It is simply great to use an N-Gage in offline mode just to play a game (I hope the next gen platform can live up to the original). Therefore the app and its data (which in case of a game may be a huge amount of date [anyone wondering about 4Gigs Windows games anymore?]). The data connection via HSPDA or WLAN is nice for downloading the game, but I still want the possibility to play offline.
And also Nokia's OVI portal is another step to create the infrastructure to enable S60 phones to live without any PC. So I think if your smartphone wants to be your personal assistant/companion (even without any nework), it needs a lot of storage. So I am looking forward towards the upcoming 8GB phones.
In contrast, I actually regret the idea of having my data/files transferred via a network. The reason is simple: I don't trust the network carriers, and I don't trust the service providers offering online storage. The strangest thing in my opinion are people creating office docs online: Do they really believe that those online storage do not skim through the data? I even think they have to, since they are responsible for illegal data.
That's why I like my personal storage big, offline and physically only reachable by myself. I don't want my home PC's data being stored online at Google, Apple or Microsoft servers, and I don't want my data being transferred over an connection I can not completely control (yah, I love the good old USB and RJ-45 cables ^^).
The problem is that I have to keep my files synced, but I think that is a minor disadvantage, and it has also an advantage included (read: redundancy).
So I'ld like to hear the other AAS readers' opinion on this topic. Where do you like your data stored? And how do you handle security over-the-air?
Surely, the whole point of S60, the emerging (finally) 3G networks and the proliferation of free (and S60 accessible) wi-fi, is that we have a choice. We can load up the whole world of Nokia Maps onto our 2GB card or we can access it on the road via 3G or GPRS.
With the development of technologies like Google Gears (oh how I'd love an S60 port of that so I can use Google Reader on the road...) we might in the future we able to access our Web 2.0 apps on the road just like I can with my laptop at the moment.
Personaly, I like being able to store my favourite pics (and music, and games, etc) on my phone but I also like being able to access my entire picture collection on my home server should there be a pic that my in-laws just have to see.
"In contrast, I actually regret the idea of having my data/files transferred via a network. The reason is simple: I don't trust the network carriers, and I don't trust the service providers offering online storage."
I totally sympathise, and the online industry is in such flux that it is pretty unclear who is trustworthy and who isn't. Google is huge, independent and has vast cash reserves, yet they're an incredibly young company which has never faced economic hardship. How well will they behave when they really do have to squeeze every cent from their users in order to survive? Would they really resist the temptation to sell on their users details to third parties?
However, go back a century or two and you'll find exactly the same attitude existed when the first personal bank accounts became common. Most people simply did not trust a huge institution to take care of their money, what was to stop the manager from simply running off with it?
Many people swore they would never ever use banks, and preferred to keep their money all in cash at home, under lock and key.
Gradually though, we did learn to trust banks, and even disasters like the Great Depression of the 1930s weren't enough to destroy the popularity of banks in the long term.
If online storage systems do prove to be trustworthy for a decade or two, and if the government in some way guarantees and police this trustworthiness as they do with banks, I think we could see a shift towards people storing their media virtually, just as most people now store their money virtually.
"Do they really believe that those online storage do not skim through the data? I even think they have to, since they are responsible for illegal data."
I don't think they are responsible, unless they refuse to remove illegal material when requested. It's like a phone company: if a robber uses a phone to plan a crime, the phone company isn't held responsible in any way.
http://www.howardforums.com//forum/thread/1108983/&highlight=soonr
I like your review way better though.
So, what's the difference between this and, say Orb? I already use Orb to stream music from my PC at home to my N95 when I'm out and about: are there any advantages to using this above Orb? Apart from the Skype thing I don't see anything Orb doesn't do, and there seems to be quite a few things missing that Orb does. Are there different target markets for these two? Why would I use one above the other?
I think this is a great utility. There are numerous times when I find I could do with a document on my PC, yet I only have my phone with me... this is the perfect solution to that!
I have both Orb and SoonR installed and running on my computer. Orb is for *streaming* data, SoonR is for *downloading*. I'd MUCH prefer to only have one app with which to do this.