Redmond, Washington — Fans of the SkyDrive are going to be thrilled at this segment of news: Barely two weeks after Apple rattled the industry watchers by introducing iCloud, and after apparently being ignored for months now, Microsoft announced a major facelift for its SkyDrive cloud storage service early this week to give it a wider appeal.
Back in 2007, the software giant launched it as a free service to give users a place to remotely store files and access them anywhere from a Web browser. While it is harmonized with Windows, Office and Windows Phone 7, it is not an exceptionally widely celebrated service.
Now, the Redmond Vole wants to change that, especially as Apple pushes cloud synchronization in its upcoming mobile operating system, iOS 5. Hence, Microsoft began releasing cosmetic and back-end changes to the SkyDrive user interface and will take advantage of HTML5 for the most cross-browser compatibility and hardware acceleration, making navigating and sorting your files much faster and more efficient.
A new era has dawned! Gone is the SkyDrive site’s dependency on Silverlight, Microsoft’s Flash competitor for interactive websites, in favor of a more adaptable and faster HTML5-driven interface.
Speed is the biggest blessing with the redesign, since SkyDrive no longer has to rely on the clunky Silverlight plugin. Major among the new functionalities include HTML5 video tag support, which is supported on pretty much every current major browser, faster load times, better file management, and much better photo support including a new ‘mosaic layout’.
According to the Microsoft, “Common tasks and scenarios, like clicking on folders and navigating photo albums have gone from speeds of 6 to 9 seconds almost down to 100 to 300 milliseconds.” This is possible because the software is now using hardware acceleration to stem lag. Microsoft says other core tasks will be sped up in the future.
The updates also delivers an easier to navigate interface and a better photo viewing experience. SkyDrive now automatically re-scales and reorganizes photo thumbnails when viewed inside a gallery folder, Microsoft said in a blog post.
Another important enhancement that includes, SkyDrive’s new capability to manage HTML5 video tags will allow H.264 video playback of clips of up to 100 megabytes so users do not have to download special players or plugins. We are not sure why there is a cap on the video size, but it could be raised in the future.
In a browser, SkyDrive is sketched out to look like Windows Explorer — the file and folder system familiar to all Windows users. Perhaps most important among the SkyDrive updates that dramatically slices the amount of time it takes to switch among folders, including the utilization of a user’s own computer hardware to more quickly render photos and gallery transitions, Microsoft said.
As SkyDrive is basically a box to put your data into, how you interact with said files is crucial. Microsoft has allocated all user content, including data groups into a single pane, to make the information simpler to mange.
The move was to make the layout more familiar: “We took elements of the common file system you are accustomed to on Windows and Mac OS so navigating SkyDrive is more intuitive.” This is what it looks like:
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The new SkyDrive photos interface also takes advantage of the move to HTML5 and Microsoft’s reignited focus on usability. Photos are now nicer to view on SkyDrive, the whole UI has been revamped with a Metro-inspired, clean layout with infinite scrolling to make browsing photos a pleasure, and a pretty new view called ‘Mosaic’:
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Ascending to new heights, photos now expand to fit the full size of your web browser. Thanks to the new CSS3 Transitions standard, photo thumbnails will be instantly rearranged as you resize the browser window.
Moreover, the software giant also removed advertisements from the right-hand column to make room for a pane that allows users to quickly open, rename or delete files. And the company added the ability to pin a user’s SkyDrive to the Windows 7 taskbar through Internet Explorer 9.
Microsoft demonstrates the changes in the video embedded below. Also of note, the company seems to have lessened emphasis on the “Windows Live” piece of the “Windows Live SkyDrive” brand, in favor of the simpler and speedier “SkyDrive.”
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