Dropbox, the popular online file storage and sharing service used by many iOS apps, has updated their terms of service, ostensibly to make their policies “easier to read and understand, and better reflect product improvements”. This after controversies involving how they handled encryption, who could and couldn’t look at your files, and an incident when passwords were disabled for a very short period of time and anyone could, theoretically peek inside. They’ve put up a blog post to help explain the new ToS and the reasons behind them, and are updating it as they get users’ feedback. Some key points:

You retain ownership to your stuff. You are also solely responsible for your conduct, the content of your files and folders, and your communications with others while using the Services.

This is legal ass-covering. Dropbox is hugely popular among iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad users, primarily because it’s easy to use and they provided really robust APIs that developers could use to get around Apple’s up-until-now p!$$-pour file sharing abilities. A large amount of iOS users use Dropbox and a large amount of Dropbox users use iOS. To enable that sharing, they feel they need to “own” the files so they can avoid being sued if anything unforeseen happens (probably including legal demands.) So, if they use your files, it’s not their fault. If you misuse their system, by contrast, it’s all your fault. They’re not taking the fall for any illegal material you choose to store there.

We wish we didn’t have to use legal terms at all, but copyright law is complicated and if we don’t get these permissions in writing, we might be putting ourselves in a tough spot down the road. Not to bore you with the details, but please take a look at the license term in the TOS. We think it’s fair and strikes the right balance: “This license is solely to enable us to technically administer, display, and operate the Services.”

The important thing to remember is this: don’t consider anything you put on an internet connected device to be private. Ever. Some of it will be better protected than others. Some of it will be far less of a target than others. But anything stored can be accessed, by accident or by malicious interception. (Just ask any young star in Hollywood with a camera phone and lack of discretion, unfortunately.)

Security and convenience are always in contention and online services like DropBox fall heavily on the convenience side.

Read the whole blog post below and let Dropbox — and us — know what you think. Will any of this change your Dropbox usage? Will iCloud?

[Dropbox blog]

UPDATE: 1Password has a great blog post up about the Dropbox changes as well. [1Password]

Phone Drive (+File Sharing) turns your iPhone, and now iPad, into a portal flash drive. Easily and quickly manage your files even better than ever.

• Download manager (New): Built in web browser with download manager that allows you to download file from internet.
• Multimedia: Ability to play all audio files in folder like playlist with repeat, shuffle, background playback and remote control from multitask.
• File sharing: File sharing to other iOS device via Bluetooth or WiFi with auto search nearest devices surrounding you.
• Easy file upload: Drag and drop file upload via your PC/Mac web browser or USB via iTunes, it’s just that simple.
• Universal app (New): App that is designed for both iPhone and iPad, you only need to purchase once.
• Text editor: Built in text editor which allows you to edit your text file or source code on your iOS device.
• Import/create file: Create text file, image capture, video records, voice recoding, and import from photo library.
• Support various files formats: Document viewer that support various format.
• Passcode lock: Protect your files from other to view it.

If you pick this one up, let us know what you think! Check out the screenshots after the break.

[$1.99 for iPhone and iPad - iTunes link]

Have an app you’d love to see featured on TiPb? Email us at iosapps@tipb.com, tell us about your app (include an iTunes link), and we’ll take a look.

9to5Mac casts a spotlight on the file sharing feature shown off during Apple’s iPad Announcement event back in January as part of iPhone 3.2 for iPad… and how it was mysteriously gone come launch day, April 3.

Given the current kluge that is getting files onto and off of the iPad file sharing seems like a fairly important feature to suddenly go missing.

You could flip a switch in the Settings and your iPad disk would show up on your Mac/PC’s desktop as a drive. You could copy files from your desktop to iPad this way manually. This would have been a great feature for carrying around important PDFs and other documents. You could store important files on your iPad, not just ones that were going to be used in iWork.

Was the feature not working properly and, given the already slipping deadline for delivery, get pushed off to a future iPhone OS update? It doesn’t seem to be in the iPhone OS 4 beta 1, but that doesn’t mean it won’t show up again in time for the final iPhone OS 4 release this summer.

Given the inclusion of iWork, however, and the ability of the iPad to handle a higher level of productivity it is strange and irksome to be waiting, especially after having been teased by the prospect.

Anyone else missing it?

9to5mac continues to dive into the iPhone 3.2 Beta 2 SDK and its iPad simulator, this time showing off HTML5 YouTube, file sharing, lock screen media controls, and more.

HTML5 H.264 YouTube video is shown playing right in the iPad Safari browser, just as it does on Mac or Windows. It looks good enough for 9to5mac to wonder if the YouTube app is still needed!

File sharing has an on/off toggle, and TiPb’s really excited about this one. The text reads “File sharing allows you to transfer application files to and from your iPad and computer”, and there’s a (currently empty) header that reads “Applications”.

We’ve already asked for a file repository, sort of like the Camera Roll does now for images, and some apps have gotten in trouble for using the DCIM folder to do just that. And official place to load, share, and save documents and other files would fill a huge functionality gap for iPad and iPhone both.

Lock Screen media controls are interesting, as we saw Apple demonstrate the iPad lock screen woking as a digital photo frame, but it does make sense for watching movies as well.

There are a few more finds, including some new things like built-in Google suggestions in iPad Safari, and some things we’ve already seen in the iPhone like percentage battery readout and Chinese character handwriting input.

If anyone else is digging around in the simulator and comes across anything more, let us know!

Hey, it’s started to work with Push Notification apps, so who can blame us for taking a second bite at the Dear Apple. So…

Where’s that free iDisk App at? You remember, the one on your What’s New in MobileMe website:

The free iDisk app, available from the App Store in iTunes, lets you view your iDisk files right on your iPhone. Popular file types, such as Microsoft Office and iWork ’09 documents and presentations, PDFs, and more, are viewable in landscape or portrait. Just tap the file to access it and use pinch gestures to zoom in and out. And any file you’ve viewed recently doesn’t need to be reloaded. So if you start reading a document in the cab to the airport, you can quickly resume reading it on the plane.

One of the great features of iDisk is file sharing. Files that are too big to email can be shared easily by accessing your iDisk online at me.com. Now you can enjoy that same convenience using your iPhone and the iDisk app. Just tap the Share button, choose your recipients, and iDisk sends them an email with a link to download your file. You can limit the number of days a shared file is available and set a password to protect it. And you don’t even need to download a file first to share it.

Apple, you tease! It’s labeled “Coming Soon”, fair enough, but any hints on how soon “soon” is?

As part of the WWDC keynote today, Apple announced new features for their MobileMe service as it pertains to the iPhone:

• Find my iPhone shows map location
• Find alerts sends text or sound to advise of lost iPhone or help find it

• Remote wipe lets you clear data from a lost iPhone, or restore it via login or iTunes

• Mobile iDisk App gives access to viewable files right on your iPhone

• File sharing lets you send links to files via email with access control
• Access public folders lets you share files on your friends’ iDisks

Like iPhone 3.0, the MobileMe updates will be available June 17.

[Thanks Cody for the tip!]

How you doing, MobileMe? For weeks, months even, you don’t call, you don’t write, then Microsoft’s My Phone moves into the fixer-upper down the street, and Google Sync starts to cozy up to us, and now you’re back with the 3rd news item in just over a week?

This time it’s a tip on how to share multiple files using the new iDisk File Sharing feature we linked to earlier. Here’s the skinny:

1. Select the files or folders you want to share. (To select multiple files hold down the Command key on a Mac or the Control key on a PC as you click on each one.)
2. Use the Actions menu via the Gear icon in the Toolbar, and select Compress items. This will automatically create a single compressed file named Archive.zip that contains your files or folders.
3. Share Archive.zip file just as you would any other iDisk file. (Before you share it, you can change the “Archive” part of the name to something more descriptive, but keep the .zip extension so the receiver’s computer will know to decompress the files when the receiver opens it.)

Of course, you could likely just archive/zip the files prior to engaging MobileMe, but it’s so nice Apple has expressed some interest. Now how about moving that iDisk love over to the iPhone? You know, there are some mobile features me still want there as well..

When Phil Schiller first demonstrated MobileMe at WWDC 2008, one of the features we instantly wanted immediately was the drop-dead simple method for sharing large files via iDisk and email. But the MobileMe launch came and went (and broke down, and went back up), with nary a large file shared between anyone. Until now.

Maybe it’s the pressure of Google’s new, free sync service or Microsoft’s My Phone, or maybe Apple’s engineers finally got it rock-solid. All we know is we’re going to send us some big blobs of data starting today. Apple’s MobileMe News has the details:

We’re pleased to announce that you can now use your MobileMe iDisk to share files with others simply and easily. Instead of attaching a large document to an email and hoping it’s not too big to be received, you can place the file in your iDisk and use the new Share File command in the iDisk web app. It lets you send your friends, family, or colleagues a link they can click to download the file directly. You can password protect the link if you choose to and even set how long it will be available.

They’ve even posted a tutorial! So, is this too little, too late for anyone? Or does it suddenly make MobileMe’s yearly fee a bit of a better deal?