The very saturated file sharing and storage market hasn’t stopped the developers behind Drops from throwing their service into the ring.

Drops is the most recent cross-platform option for sharing as many files as you want, with no limit to your storage capacity. The only limit imposed is that each file can’t be larger than 30MB.

After downloading the app, and a quick sign-up, requiring only an email address and password, uploading files couldn’t be easier.

The Adobe Air app uses a simple drag-and-drop approach to upload your files to the cloud. Once there, you can easily share the shortened URL with anyone you want. If you no longer want to keep the file stored on Drops, you can easily delete it from the app.

What’s cool about the way Drops works is not only the ease of uploading files, but how shared files are presented. Rather than just be met with a download link, you can easily preview files and images before saving them to your computer, although it doesn’t seem to work with all files. Word and PDF files did not preview.

Audio files can also be previewed before downloading, using the in-built audio player.

In addition to being able to share the link with anyone, when opening it, there is a convenient tweet button that enables you to quickly share the file with your followers.

Drops definitely does take a simplified approach to sharing files, and while the app is still in public beta, there are a few features that would make it even more useful. You can only access your links from the app, so if you’re on the go, away from your computer – there’s no web interface which you can use for share files that have already been uploaded.

What’s your favourite file sharing app? Let us know in the comments.

Most people would agree that tilt shift photography looks pretty amazing (for an in depth description have a look here), and a quick search of the internets will yield some fantastic images for your viewing pleasure. If you’d like to have a go at producing such images but can’t stretch to all the gadgetry required, why not spend a mere $0.99 on Tiltshift Generator for your iPhone?

Developers Art & Mobile originally offered Tiltshift Generator as a free prototype running in your browser, and a standalone version using Adobe AIR, then used this knowledge to create iPhone and iPad versions.

They’ve done a nice job – this app has a very simple and elegant interface – just don’t be frightened by the Hal 9000 style splash screen. Simply take a photo or choose one from your photo library, and the fun begins.

Press the blur button and you have two choices available to you, a radial blur or a linear blur. You can adjust the positioning and size with your fingers, and the distance over which focus drops off by using a slider. I find a linear blur works best with landscapes and city scenes, whilst the radial blur is perfect for macro style photography and portraits.

Once you’ve got the depth of field effect to your liking, tap the ‘color’ button and you can adjust the saturation, brightness and contrast of the image. This may seem like a pretty basic selection of controls, but I often use Tiltshift Generator just for this purpose – often, all a photo really needs is a bit more saturation and contrast to liven it up a bit, so why overcomplicate things?

Finally, you can add a vignette to your shot before saving to your photo library or exporting it to Facebook, Twitter or your email app. Tiltshift Generator really is a cinch to use, not least because you see the results of your actions almost instantly. This allows you to get your head round what the app has to offer within a few minutes. Instantly gratifying, cool looking results and cheap? This is my kind of app.

Yes, there’s no live webcam streaming here – instead this Adobe Air-based app is designed to help you keep up to date with the videos your friends are streaming from their Qik accounts.

Qik-in-Touch can be thought of as a ‘browser’ for Qik. Friends’ new videos appear within the app in real time and you can take a look at the latest video streams from around the world too. If you minimise the app it will alert you when there’s something new to watch.

The app is currently in private beta but you can sign up to try it at http://qik.com/qntbeta. Each beta user gets ten invites, so it shouldn’t take too long to get on board if you’re desperate.

The question is, how useful will this be for most people? Many users of Qik use it infrequently as a way sharing a fun or interesting event. As a result, many users could install Qik-in-Touch and have to wait days or weeks between new videos. If you are friends with lots of heavy Qik users, this could be just the app to keep tabs on them with.

Qik isn’t the only mobile app to make the leap to the desktop. ‘Instant podcasting’ service AudioBoo recently made such a jump with its browser record function. While it might have seemed logical for Qik to have included webcam live streaming in its desktop app, there are plenty of other services such as Justin.tv and Ustream already offering this service.

Incidentally, Ustream was recently the first service to successfully launch a live streaming app on the iPhone. We were frustrated with the first version of Qik’s own iPhone app which didn’t offer true live video. Following Ustream’s success, Qik has reportedly submitted a live-enabled version of its app.

Adobe has launched the beta version of Air 2.0 – and it’s pointing to a very interesting future…

It’s hard to believe that it’s less than two years since version 1.0 of Adobe’s Air platform launched. Since that launch in January 2008 it’s become invaluable for many Twitter users thanks to its use as the basis of apps like Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop. It’s become widely used by other types of app too.

What’s most interesting about Air is that it means developers don’t really have to worry too much about the operating system their end users are working with – as long as they have Air installed they’re good to go.

If Air becomes more powerful, a wider range of apps can be created for it and they can all be available to just about anyone with a modern computer. That means better choice of apps for users and a much bigger potential audience for developers.

So, what are the new features in Air 2.0? The most interesting ones are: