In other products, you have toolbars and menus and formatting all over the place, and there's none of that here.' There are only a few options, because they didn't want to let people overwhelm themselves with choices.

'The idea is to really let the work people are doing, the images and text, shine through,' Cacioppo says, 'and not the tool. Yet for all the stated power of these sheets of paper, the Dropbox approach is to make everything as simple as possible. And it's hard to tell how much ground it can make up-even if it does look pretty sleek.ĭropbox’s New Android App Is All About Invisible Design Arrow A lot of people know Dropbox, and a lot of people will try Paper as a result, but Dropbox is late to this party. It's hoping to leave files behind at long last. More broadly, Dropbox doesn't want you to think of it as a storage company anymore.

'We love the name because physical paper is simple, it's flexible, it's a creative service.' Paper felt appropriately wide-ranging, says Matteus Pan, a product manager at Dropbox. An initial beta was called Notes, but Dropbox decided that didn't feel big enough. It's Dropbox! The company that has spent almost a decade keeping all your files in perfect sync is now launching its second product, along with a re-branding of sorts. You can create documents, chat, and keep everything in an easily searchable repository. The mission is, and I quote, 'to simplify the way people work together.' It's primarily a collaboration tool, where teams-especially at small businesses, but eventually anyone-work together in a single, shared space to get things done. I'm going to describe an idea, and you have to name the company behind it (and no cheating by reading the headline).

Dropbox paper faq