Dropbox for Android adds automatic photo & video sync, iOS update on deck

Cloud storage service Dropbox has handily added automatic photo and video uploads to its popular Android app, and this awesome new feature is on its way to iOS as well, the company announced late on Thursday.

Android has been getting a lot of love this week from cloud storage providers, with Box just releasing a new version of its Android app and giving users who login from Android during the next 30 days 50GB of free storage. And on Monday, Microsoft re-committed that its SkyDrive application would be available across all devices. Dropbox, Box, and Microsoft are offering a sharp contrast to Apple’s still-flawed iCloud service.

The new Dropbox for Android application wants to make your life easier when it comes to backing up and syncing your precious photos and videos. With automated uploads in place, you can feel a bit better if you ever lose your phone or drop it into your beer by accident.

After downloading the new Android app, you can upload via Wi-Fi or cellular network. All photos and videos in their original quality will end up saved in a private Dropbox folder called “Camera Uploads.” And, as with other Dropbox-stored content, those photos and videos become easy to share with your friends and family.

The company did not specify when this smart update was coming to iOS, but we expect it will happen in the next few weeks.

Because photo and video storage can eat into your storage very quickly, Dropbox will gradually raise the free limit of 2GB to 5GB as you add more content.

“To help you get started saving your photos, we’ll give you 500MB of Dropbox space for your first automatic upload,” writes Jeff Bartelma, Dropbox Director of Product. “As you take more photos and videos, you can use this feature to automatically upload up to a total of 3GB extra for free.”

Are you a Dropbox user? Will you be trying out this new feature?