Offline cloud computing coming to iPad and iPhone


11 Aug 2010

Cloud content management platform Box.net has updated its iPhone and iPad application to support offline downloads and background processing in iOS 4.

This will allow users to download files and will give users the ability to work with them offline.

Aaron Levie, co-founder and CEO of Box.net, says the company is doing research with D7 Consulting in order to ascertain how the app is being used by small industries.

It found that one of the biggest feature requests from D7 Consulting was to be able to access files offline.

Connectivity was seen to be an issue particularly if users were travelling on an airplane or if they were using Wi-Fi only device.

This new update aims to solve this problem. Once an Internet connection is made, the app alerts users to any changes made on offline documents. It then syncs these changes with the cloud server document.

It also supports fast app switching, background uploading or download and higher resolution graphics for iPhone 4.

The Box.net was one of the first business apps with iPad compatibility. It hopes to release this new update to the App Store soon and has plans to develop an Android version of the app.