New devices supported. We are delighted to release our client software for Mac OS X (10.5.1 or higher) and Windows Mobile (6.0 and 6.1). Because these are both significant new software investments for us, we’re going to only provide them on a limited basis for now (and mobile is restricted to only US or UK to start.) If you get a message saying that we’re at full capacity for these clients, keep an eye on the blog here. We’ll post updates as we increase availability over the coming months.
- To get access to the Mac client, sign in to www.mesh.com, click Add Device, and then click the “Limited Mac Tech Preview now available” link underneath the Install button. If we haven’t exceeded the limit for Mac clients, you’ll get a confirmation dialog, and then Mac will show up under the available list of devices when you choose Add Device from the ring.
- To get access to the Windows Mobile 6.x client, click on one of the following links (US residents, UK residents). Sign in with your LiveID, and you’ll be redirected to the device ring where you’ll see a link to “Use Live Mesh for mobile devices.” Alternately, once you’ve signed in this way, the mobile client should be available for download by pointing your phone’s browser to http://m.mesh.com
Worldwide availability. We’ve removed the limits on what countries are able to sign up to use Live Mesh. We previously had limitations in place so that we could complete our testing with various language and locale settings, and now that work is indeed complete (with the caveat of course that for now the mobile client, as mentioned above, is not actually available worldwide).
WAP access. Some of you already discovered that browsing http://m.mesh.com from your WAP-enabled phone gives you a lightweight way to view Mesh content (and, on phones that support it, upload new files.) We’re now making WAP an officially supported feature.
Folder roles/permissions. Members of a folder can now be assigned one of the following roles to control their access rights: creator, owner, contributor, and reader. Previously, the only permission level (aka “role”) you could set for a member was “owner,” which meant that all members had the same control over the contents of a folder (adding, changing, deleting) as you did. Now, you can assign specific permissions for each member in a Live Mesh folder. Want members to be able to read what’s in a folder, but not change any content? Make them readers. Want them to be able to add to the folder, but not invite other users? Make them contributors.
Automatic update is now available for the Live Mesh software. This has been a common user request, and we’re taking a first step towards making it possible for your Mesh client software to update itself automatically, without you having to click on any links. In this Beta release, automatic update works like magic if you chose not to install the extra enhancements that required administrator rights. If you did install them, we still have to prompt you to update so that you can click through the UAC elevation prompt and give us permission to update administrative components. We will continue to work on streamlining this process for you in future releases.
P2P sync can be managed from your computer. When we first enabled P2P sync, you had to go to the Live Desktop to change the sync settings for a folder so that it would no longer synchronize with your Live Desktop and eat up your 5 GB storage limit. We heard from many customers that this was not very intuitive (and we agree: it wasn’t). Now you can change this sync setting from the Live Mesh software on your computer, without having to visit the Live Desktop at all.
You can drag and drop files to folders on your Live Desktop. One of the most frequently requested features since we opened Live Mesh as a technology preview in April has been the ability to drag and drop files and folders to and from your Live Desktop. We’re extremely happy to be able to say: You can do this now! This makes the Live Desktop experience much more intuitive and even more aligned with Windows. Note that the drag-and-drop feature currently only works with a Windows PC and Internet Explorer 6 or later.
You can select multiple files for upload or download. In addition to drag-and-drop, you can now use SHIFT and CTRL to select multiple files/folders when uploading them to your Live Desktop.
Added new synchronization status indicators. If you’ve been using Live Mesh to sync a lot of data, you’ve probably found yourself wondering at some point how far along the synchronization process was. We’ve added an icon to the notification area of the taskbar and a progress bar so that you can tell at a glance how your folder sync is coming.
“Get started” feature added for new users. Quick tips on how to start using Live Mesh appear on the Live Desktop and when new users install the Live Mesh software. Great for friends and family you invite!
UPDATE: Added a screenshot showing new download indicators, mobile and mac and some new screens
