Microsoft releases SkyDrive app for iPhone, Windows Phone

Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled a version of its SkyDrive cloud service for Windows Phone and the iPhone.

The move, Microsoft said in a blog post, comes as people increasingly need access to files on-the-go.

"As devices proliferate, having a great experience on the Web is only one piece of a pretty complex puzzle," Microsoft's Mike Torres wrote. "People are choosing where to put their files based on how portable and accessible they are across the various devices they use; therefore, it's critical that we continue to extend the SkyDrive experience to the devices you use every day."

To that end, the most recent version of Windows Phone, known as Mango, included deep integration with SkyDrive via the Pictures and Office hubs, allowing for the sharing of photos via text, email, or IM, for example.

But users wanted more, Torres said. "Many still want the full SkyDrive experience from Windows Phone, including tasks like browsing their entire SkyDrive, sharing links to folders or files, deleting files, and creating folders." As a result, phones running Windows Phone 7.5 can now download the SkyDrive app from the Windows Phone Marketplace and do just that.

For those on iOS, the same app was also released in the App Store. See the video above for more.

"On the iPhone, we've taken the next step by making the new SkyDrive app for iPhone available in 32 languages worldwide," Torres wrote. "In addition to their OneNote notebooks, iPhone customers can now access all of their files in SkyDrive, create folders, delete files, and share links to folders and files directly using the Mail app."

Yesterday, Microsoft also released a version of its OneNote iOS app that is tailored for the iPad's larger screen.

Last month, Microsoft unveiled significant updates to Office 365 and SkyDrive, expanding the reach of Office 365 to 22 new markets in the process. Improvements included SharePoint support for IE9 and Chrome, plus support for Mac OS X Lion.

The SkyDrive updates were a reaction to its recent self-reflection on the state of its cloud services, which found, for example, that fewer than 10 percent of college students considered using SkyDrive for their shared documents, even though most of them started and ended the documents in Microsoft Office. One of the revamped aspects of SkyDrive is to make it more "app-centric," where files can be worked within the context of the application, and not just SkyDrive.

This article, written by Chloe Albanesius, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.