I just noticed that we passed 10,000 downloads of our Carbonite iPhone application and it's only been out a few months. It's such a useful app. My wife and I were in the car last week when she got a call from her publisher who urgently needed a copy of a chapter from her latest book. My wife's Mac is backed up with Carbonite, so she was able to find the file on her iPhone and email it to her publisher right from the car.

Recently, our chief operating officer, Keith Cooper, played me a voicemail that a friend of his had left for him. "Keith, this is Todd. I just downloaded your iPhone app. I didn't know you had one until yesterday and it is absolutely awesome! I can view all of my documents from my iPhone… so convenient. So, nice job! Very cool! Extremely cool!"

It's also gratifying to read some of the recent user reviews on the App Store: "Amazing App (5 stars) Unbelievable to have my PC with me. My only wish is for a slideshow for picture files. That would make this app perfect." "Great app, please make for the iPad (5 stars) Great app!" [Our iPhone app works on the iPad, but we'll work on releasing an iPad optimized version in the future – DF]. "Makes me a huge fan (5 stars) Needed it and it was there… Thank you!"

We also got a couple of black eyes, like this post: "Buggy and slow (1 star) Very slow especially when opening a directory with many files. Help file is incomplete with limited explanations. When opening very large PDFs, will crash randomly. App shows old PC subscriptions that no longer exist. Great concept, but needs a lot of polish!"

Well, good news: version 1.1 was just released to the App Store. This new version is much faster and uses much more sophisticated caching. The help section is improved, all known bugs are fixed and expired subscriptions no longer show up. It is much more polished from both a functional and graphical point of view. If you haven't tried the iPhone app, now is a good time. If you're a Carbonite subscriber, it's completely free. You can even use it during the free trial period.

Stay tuned for more product announcements on the mobile front in the months to come.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Man, this is what I've been waiting for! I have my iPhone with me wherever I go (I have to confess to being a little obsessed with it) and now I can view my backed up files — anywhere, anytime — using the new Carbonite app for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

I had my first great experience with it while waiting for my plane at LaGuardia Airport. I was supposed to give a talk at a conference later that day, so I pulled up my PowerPoint presentation on my iPhone (the original is on my office computer) and reviewed it. I then spent 20 productive minutes looking over a contract. While still waiting at the gate, I decided to browse my favorite pictures of me and my daughter high above the clouds on the top of Mt. Washington.

The Carbonite app gives me access to the backed up files from each of my computers, even if the computers are turned off. And I don't have to be logged into a Wi-Fi connection or lug my laptop with me. It displays my photos, documents, and other important files and allows me to share any of my backed up files with someone else via email, right from the app. It's fast and super-simple. I'm really proud of this Carbonite app and I hope you all will find it as useful as I do.

The best part? It's free for all Carbonite users. To learn more or download the app, go to www.Carbonite.com/iPhone.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Bill Blinn of TechByter Worldwide interviewed our CEO, Dave Friend, for the November 15, 2009 TechByter podcast.

As a Carbonite fan, Blinn discussed his confidence in our online backup service as he introduce this week’s TechByter podcast, "The real safety net, and it's one that has saved me more times than I like to admit, is Carbonite. It's easy to make a dumb mistake that deletes files I need. I can get them back from my hot backup or from my Acronis backup. But more often than not, I've recovered them from my Carbonite backup."

Dave's interview can be found on www.TechByter.com in two parts:

Listen to Part 1 (Audio 5:07)

Listen to Part 2 (Audio 1:13)

— Alison

I got an email this morning from a long-time user complaining about our recent price increase: "It's great that you've released Remote Access, but why does that justify a price increase?" As you may know, we recently increased our yearly subscription fee by $5, to $54.95. The simple fact is that the size of our average user's backup is growing by about 3% per month. That's 36% more data every year, and consequently we have to buy 36% more disk space and pay for 36% more bandwidth. Luckily the price of disk storage is also coming down, so we can keep our price increase to just 10% after 3 years. There's a new generation of less expensive 2TB drives coming out later this year that should allow us to hold this price for quite a long time — certainly several years. Meanwhile, we're still 10% less expensive on an annual basis than the companies that are hawking $4.95/mo ($59.40/yr).

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite

Over the weekend we launched Remote Access — an application that lets you access and download your backed up files from any computer with a web browser. This is an application that I have wanted personally for a long time. Last year I was on a business trip to Hong Kong and discovered that a Powerpoint presentation I had put together for one of my meetings had not gotten transferred to my laptop. Luckily, I was able to use the alpha version of Remote Access to download the presentation from the backup of my office desktop computer. What a life-saver!

The new feature is accessible to all Carbonite users from our home page. Just click the new "Remote Access" tab in the upper right corner of the screen. Once you enter your email address and password, you can navigate through your backed up files and instantly download any of them.

— Dave
CEO, Carbonite