New App Brings the Cloud to Your iPhone

I am a big believer in cloud computing. It's the wave of the future. Work is transitioning from the desktop to web applications, albeit slowly and not without challenges. But make no mistake, it's coming. The success of the netbook market is a great sign of things to come. However, I believe smartphones will give this category a run for their money.

Earlier this week Alex Wolfe at InformationWeek published an interview with me about how I use my iPhone as the fulcrum of my productivity system. I want to share with you one part of the interview here since it summarizes my thoughts on how cloud computing and smartphones are going to change the game...

Wolfe: Do you foresee additional uptake of tasks by smartphones?

Rubel: I believe we're in a great era of transition. Ten years from now, we will laugh at people who still take laptops on business trips. The reason is that smartphones will be the center of everyone's computing experience and they will blend personal/professional lives.

Our data will be stored on the cloud. The devices will connect wirelessly to LCD monitors and keyboards/mice and utilize the full Windows or OS X experience. Once detached, they will adopt a more mobile-centric paradigm like the iPhone or Windows Mobile operating system. The same thing will apply at home. Hotel rooms will even have these peripherals. People will have one device that does it all, but these will leverage the cloud and peripherals for tasks that require it, and adopt different personalities based on context.

While others like my friend James Kendrick disagree, the future is coming a lot quicker than I imagined. In fact, it sort of arrived today. This morning a brand new iPhone app from Quickoffice called MobileFiles hit the App Store. You can get it on iTunes here and it's free. I downloaded it and boy it is sweet.

With MobileFiles you can access your entire Apple MobileMe file cloud, which works on both Macs and PCs. You can view files, download them so they are stored locally and even manage the documents. Integration with Google Docs, Microsoft Sharepoint (wow!) and WebDav services like Box.net is next. And document editing isn't far behind. QuickOffice is also available on lots of other platforms too, by the way.

While others like James disagree, I see smartphones coupled with the cloud allowing us to manage a lot of basic PC tasks on the go. These devices will become your sole computer in a few years as they start connecting to other peripherals. There are also signs that the entire category is recession-proof. comScore reports that lower income consumers maybe replacing other devices with iPhones.

It's early but if you squint you can begin to see how smartphones and web apps could one day replace PCs and software for a lot of what we do today.