When I converted to a Mac in 2006, I did so in the future I could acces my content across all my Apple devices. But today, that’s not really a reality. I still have content that resides solely on my iPhone or my iPad or my MacBook. I know there’s ways to get around this. There’s syncing my devices. And, there’s the iCloud option, which has already hit max capacity. But those options, if not complicated, are time-consuming.
Now there’s something that sounds a lot simpler. It’s called Younity, which as of Tuesday morning is available for Mac and iOS devices, and Windows computers.
Younity, a product created by Entangled Media, allows users to connect their devices so the content that resides on all the devices can be accessed from any of the devices. So if you have movies on your computer, and videos on your iPhone, you can access both from your iPad without having to transfer those movies onto the iPad. The videos and music collections are streamed.
“Younity creates a personal cloud for all of your devices,” said Erik Caso, CEO at Entangled Media, in an interview. “There’s 250 million people who have three or more Internet devices, such as a desktop, laptop, phone, tablet. They then create and buy an enormous amount of content across these devices. This creates the multi-device condundrum. You have to use a specific device because that’s where the content is.
“Younity fills that void by making all your devices inherently connected.”
So how does this work?
Just download the Younity app on your devices. Younity then creates a personal private cloud for your files across all your devices by essentially turning them into cloud servers. User information is private and never stored online because Younity never stores your data. That data is stored on your own devices.
Once you make an account and connect all your devices to that account, you can start accessing the photos from your iPhone on your iPad and the PPTs from your desktop on your iPad.
The service is free for now, even if you have one terabyte of files, which is the average number of files a person has across multiple devices. This number if forcasted to grow to 2.2TB per household in 2013. In the future, Younity will likely charge for multiple devices. So the first three devices may be free, but the fourth one would cost. The pricing has yet to be determined.
Beyond just being able to access all your photos from all devices, Younity converts audio and video no matter the file format to ensure it plays on your devices, even if the file formats are not supported by iOS. It also streams music and videos to AppleTV or any AirPlay-enabled TV or stereo.
Entangled Media is part of the Mucker Lab Fall 2012 class, which is currently in session. The five-person team has already secured $1.2 million in seed funding from a number of angels, including Brian Lee and Henry Parry-Okeden.
