Microsoft have announced some big changes coming to SkyDrive. Liveside have posted a decent summation of the confirmed and unconfirmed features, the headline items are:
- Paid storage up to 100GB
- Metro-style app for Windows 8
- Desktop client for Windows (possibly MAC as well)
- Windows 8 filepicker integration
- Remote access to files stored on PCs
- URL shortening service
- 300MB file upoad via SkyDrive.com
- 2GB file limit via Windows Explorer
- Mesh and SkyDrive are becoming one
As ever this raises more questions than it answers (no bad thing). My questions:
- When does it all launch? When will I be able to get 100GB synced from my Windows 7 PC?
- Will the desktop client work on Windows-On-ARM (WOA)?
- I currently have 5GB of free Mesh storage plus 25GB of free SkyDrive storage. Will I then get 30GB of free storage when SkyDrive and Mesh get merged? If not, what happens if my total current content exceeds 25GB?
- There are strong rumours (which I believe) that a new music service from Microsoft is on its way (again Liveside has the goods). Is this going allow you to play music that is stored on SkyDrive?
- Will I be able to access that stored music from my XBox and Windows Phone?
- Will my Zune Music Pass (which I love) still work?
- Will SkyDrive.com have an integrated player for my audio/visual files stored up there?
- Will there be a music-oriented way of navigating my music that is stored on SkyDrive.com (i.e. one that searches music only, doesn’t present my collection as a folder hierarchy, one that is as pretty as today’s Zune Desktop client?)
- Will my owned music appear alongside my Music-pass-rented music?
- Will their music marketplace be integrated into SkyDrive.com?
- Can I share my music with my family? How many people can I share it with?
- Will they offer analytics on the URL shortener? I still use bit.ly a lot for the links I share on Twitter precisely because it tells me how many people click that link.
- What happens if the amount of stuff I have stored on SkyDrive is greater than the available space on my device? Can I choose which music files get synced and which do not?
- How about podcasts? Can I store my podcast subscriptions online and will they be downloaded into my SkyDrive without my having to turn on one of my machines?
Hopefully all will be answered before too long!