File syncing and storage startup Zumodrive is updating its mobile offerings today, releasing new versions of their applications for iPhone, Android and Palm smartphones. ZumoDrive, which spawned from Y Combinator startup Zecter, has a different take on file syncing. Similar to other services, Zumodrive creates a drive on your device that is synced to the cloud. But service includes a slightly different twist-ZumoDrive tricks the file system into thinking those cloud-stored files are local, and streams them from the cloud when you open or access them.
The new mobile apps allow users to upload and download files to ZumoDrive directly from their smartphones, which was not available as a feature in the previous versions of the applications. With the new apps, users can get any of their playlists, photo albums or other files on their devices without taking up local disc space and without having to use wires to physically sync their files. You can also now share content directly from iPhone, Android, Palm devices. Other new features to the apps include improved media streaming on Android and Palm devices and a password protection to lock the iPhone app.
ZumoDrive has been gaining traction over the past year. Fresh off of a $1.5 million funding round, the startup scored a deal with HP in January to to power the backend of the technology giant’s CloudDrive on all HP Mini netbooks. And the startup is seeing considerable growth in international markets, with the application’s user-base in over 150 countries. ZumoDrive is also available in eight localized versions: English, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese and Chinese. While nearly half of ZumoDrive usage is in the US, a growing percentage is coming from Asia and Europe with Japan and the UK leading the pack.
Last year, ZumoDrive released a new version of its system that wirelessly syncs playlists between devices, auto-detects content, and lets users link file folders on their devices to ZumoDrive only once so that changes in that folder will always be linked to ZumoDrive. The service was also upgraded to integrate well with media applications, like iTunes, so users can play entire music libraries saved in ZumoDrive on multiple devices without manually syncing content. We initially reviewed Zumodrive here.
Zecter previously launched a product called Versionate, an office-wiki product, that we first covered in July 2007. We wrote about them again a year ago. ZumoDrive faces competition from Dropbox, SugarSync, and Box.net.