Dropbox heats up cloud battle with photo upload feature

SAN FRANCISCO — Dropbox unveiled on Thursday a new photo uploading feature for Android smartphones, potentially sharpening its competition with Google, Apple, and a host of other companies battling to rule the burgeoning market for online storage solutions.

Single click

With a single click, the feature will allow users to wirelessly upload high-resolution pictures straight from their smartphones onto the virtual "cloud," where the files can be accessed from any computer or mobile device.

Although the first release of the app will only be available for Android phones, an Apple iOS version will be released before long, the company said. Users get 500 megabytes of storage afterwards their first upload and can receive up to a total of 3 gigabytes of extra free space.

Similarly in June, Apple announced iCloud, a consumer-oriented service for Apple users that as well syncs email and calendars.

Founded by Houston and a classmate from the Massachusetts Institute of Innovation in 2007, Dropbox has raised $250 million at a reported $4 billion valuation.

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