Microsoft is definitely keeping its promise during the Windows Phone VIP press event, having revealed more details about the Music+Videos hub in Windows Phone "Mango" last week, and just yesterday they have revealed more details about the Games hub. Today, Mike Torres, Group Program Manager for SkyDrive Devices and Roaming, posted on the Inside Windows Live blog revealing several new features on SkyDrive on Windows Phone "Mango", and here it is:
Share photos stored on SkyDrive via email, text, or IM
SkyDrive lets you store thousands of pictures in the cloud. You can show them off to friends on your phone in the Pictures hub, and now you can share SkyDrive photos with anyone over email, MMS (the photo will be sent as MMS rather than as a link to SkyDrive), or Messenger.- Share your video on SkyDrive
With Mango, all the goodness you had with photos has been extended to videos. Once you’re finished shooting your video, you can caption it and share immediately on SkyDrive, and the upload will happen in the background while you move on to other things.
- Browse your documents stored on SkyDrive
Windows Phone lets you view folders and files directly on your phone, so when you group things on SkyDrive, you know they’ll be available with the same folder structure on your phone. - See what’s been shared with you
More than 70% of the folders created on SkyDrive are shared with other people, which makes it all the more important to see everything shared with you on your phone. This pivot view will show you the complete list of documents shared with you, letting you open and edit in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. - Search your SkyDrive documents
If you store a lot of stuff on SkyDrive, being able to do a quick search is important. In the Office hub, you can easily search across your SkyDrive for the document you need without having to wade through your folders and other files.
You can also check out the two videos uploaded to YouTube showing photos and Office documents being synced on SkyDrive with Windows Phone.
Further, remember a few weeks ago when we speculated that music streaming from SkyDrive might be coming to Windows Phone? Unfortunately, Mike Torres in the comments section of the blog post outright denied this claim, and referred us to Zune Pass for cloud music:
Q: If there is an MP3 file on SkyDrive is it possible to stream it to the phone?
A: With MP3s, the Office hub won’t stream your MP3s, no.Q: Oh dear, you seemed to forget to mention anything about music 🙁 I hope this is one of the unannounced surprise features
A: Have you tried Zune Pass? It’s a different model, but if you’re looking for cloud-based music across Windows Phone, Xbox, PC, and web (including Mac support!) it’s a fantastic subscription service.
However, when Mike Torres was asked about features such as better usability, third-party API support, Windows Live Mesh integration, and expandable storage, he acknowledged that these are "top asks" for SkyDrive and said that they are currently "hard at work on SkyDrive as we speak" and asked to "stay tuned to the Inside Windows Live blog for updates". We’ve seen the new HTML5-based SkyDrive UI from previous screenshot leaks (rumored to be coming this month), which addresses the usability problem, but will we be seeing the other top-requested features coming too?
I certainly hope Mike also realises that cloud music streaming is also one of the "top asks" for SkyDrive, particularly with Apple’s iCloud, Amazon’s Cloud Player, and Google’s Music Beta all coming out this year. As always, remember to stay tuned to LiveSide as we bring you the latest on Windows Live.