On the Building Windows 8 Blog the latest post is about SkyDrive and Windows 8. In a video on the post Microsoft explain how SkyDrive is integrated in to Windows 8. There is going to be a SkyDrive Metro app where you can browse your entire SkyDrive collection and save data back to SkyDrive with 3rd party apps being able to use SkyDrive file picker . There is going to a desktop connection via Explorer and a remote fetch option where you can browse your Windows 8 machines from Skydrive.com, so you could take a file from your Windows 8 desktop and copy it to Skydrive. The new app is going to be included in the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 due later this month.
It looks like SkyDrive is going to be a crucial part of Windows multi-device strategy. Read the post for all the details:
This post will cover the ways that SkyDrive will evolve with Windows 8 from a website today into a truedevice cloud for Windows customers. We’ve organized the post around the three biggest things we’re doing:
SkyDrive Metro style app on Windows 8
SkyDrive files integrated into Windows Explorer on the desktop, and
The ability to fetch remote files through SkyDrive.com
SkyDrive as a Metro style app for Windows 8
Inside Microsoft, we’ve all been using Windows 8 on multiple PCs for some time now. We clean install Windows 8 on a new PC and sign in, and all of our settings, browser history, and customizations just show up. In addition, one of the most important steps we take to make a new PC “ours” is to copy over our personal files – like documents and photos. With Windows 8, we wanted to make sure that your files would be instantly available and up-to-date as you move between PCs – without configuring add-ons or using a USB drive.
One approach to building a modern device cloud is to build a set of proprietary apps that hide files from users. But because we are building a cloud that can store different types of data and lots of it, we decided to take a different approach. We designed a no-compromise cloud experience where enthusiasts will be able to control files the way they want, while others who are less familiar with the file system can still take advantage of the cloud simply by accessing SkyDrive through the apps they use every day.
Enter the new SkyDrive app. With the SkyDrive app, an early version of which will be available at Consumer Preview, we focused on two things: 1) designing a fast, fluid, touch-first version of SkyDrive that makes it quick, easy, and even fun to browse and access your files, and 2) making your SkyDrive available for use from any Metro style app via the file picker (open/save) and the new Share charm in Windows 8.
To build a SkyDrive experience on WinRT, we took an approach that we expect many web developers will choose to take on Windows 8. We built the entire app using modern web technologies like JavaScript, CSS, and HTML5, and because of our recent updates to SkyDrive.com, we were able to use the same JSON APIs and JavaScript object model that the website uses. The only difference on Windows 8 is that we bind the results to modern controls that were built for touch. This is part of the reason it’s so fast, and the touch behavior works so well (and works on Windows on ARM too). Over time, we fully expect the Metro style app and SkyDrive.com to “converge” on functionality so there won’t be a question of which experience someone should use. When using Windows 8, the SkyDrive Metro style app will be the best way to browse and manage your SkyDrive.
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