Overview
Who says you need to leave your digital fantasy football guide on your desktop? Air Sharing lets you take it with you, by turning your iPhone into a wireless portable drive for easily transporting or viewing files on-the-go. It’s a lot like Datacase, except it’s currently being offered for free.
Functionality
To move files onto an iPhone or iPod Touch, users need to first launch the app, then connect to the device’s web address from a computer (as long as that computer is connected to the same wireless network). There are instructions for doing this in the app’s help tab, but on a Mac it basically involves hitting the “Connect to Server” option in the “Go” menu.
After connecting, users can drop any file or folder into the drive, just as with a USB drive, and can view all iPhone-supported file types, like documents, photos, movies and spreadsheets, without difficulty (our recent review on Datacase touches on many of these same features).
There is also an option to password-protect the connection, just in case you don’t want everyone on your network to see your pilates routine (that’s right, I have pilates videos and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that).
Review
The main difference between Air Sharing and Datacase is the connection method.
Upon launching Datacase, your iPhone will automatically appear as another drive in your computer’s finder window (as long as the phone is connected to the same wireless network as your computer). That makes Datacase easier to access.
Another big difference is that Datacase can sort files by type, so that you can choose to browse only your videos, for example, and it offers a graphical display of how much space each file type is taking in your Datacase drive.
Air Sharing offers a unique pop-up menu view that allows users to jump quickly back or forward in a hierarchical sequence of folders. It also incorporates a useful display of each file or folder’s size (either in terms of disk space or number of items) as well as the date and time each was loaded onto your device.
But other than these two differentiators Air Sharing doesn’t do much else better than Datacase and even seems to have trouble with PDF files, loading them slowly and sticking up when scrolling within a file (PDFs are not difficult to view in Datacase).
The two apps are very similar and nearly equal, but Datacase seems to be the better app.
Summary
While Air Sharing offers a method for turning your iPhone into a wireless portable drive, Datacase is easier to use and offers more features. Since it’s free for the first two weeks, Air Sharing is a great option now, but when it starts selling for $6.99, Datacase, at the same price, is the better app.
Our Rating
Air Sharing
- Developer: Avatron Software, Inc.
- Category: Productivity
- Released: 9-8-08
(currently 2.3)
(currently 2.99)
This application is pretty aweful. I bought it and transferred files smoothly, but the music feature is poorly organized and only plays one song… then you have to go back into the app. and click play on the next one… even if you wanted to play a whole album. Now with the new update, the app. took about 5 hours to download… and never finished successfully.
I bought datacse because iTunes will not install on my machine (XPx64)… so I wanted a way to get Music on my iPhone. Now iPhone tells me that I can’t download datacase and that I have to use iTunes… which I can’t use because Apple doesn’t suport x64 on XP.
Waste of time and money. Read the reviews in the App. Store… 9 ou of 10 have similar complaints. This app. needs to be yanked and everyone should be refunded.
You should try ifiles app 100 tims better
No offense PJ, but you’re on crack. Nine out of ten ratings on the App Store are 5-star reviews. The average rating is 1-star. Air Sharing ROCKS. It works just fine for me and for everybody I’ve talked to who has tried it. But then, we’re not stupid enough to buy a 64-bit machine running Windows XP and then complain that software is incompatible with it. Again, no offense intended. But you ARE on crack.
Sorry, typo. I meant to say that the average rating is 4.5 stars. Anyway, I guess that proves that I’m on crack too.
Mmmmmm, crack.
And PJ, you freaking MORON, Air Sharing is FREE. Nobody has paid a cent for it. How could everybody be refunded? Sweet jesus on a pogo stick.
Sorry PJ but you are 100% WRONG in your awful review of AirSharing. This App ROCKS! And it’s free! What on earth can you possibly complain about?
Why don’t you get a proper computer running OS X and maybe you won’t get annoyed when your incompatible OS won’t work with an App that uses nothing more than WebDav and Bonjour – both proven protocols.
I can’t wait to see ‘PJ’s Air Share’ App that corrects all the faults you have found with this App…
I finally got the app working! My Airport and my wi fi were on different networks so is wasn’t connecting. This app works well now that it’s connected. Very convenient!
Some times you may not need whole file to be on your iPhone. There is a nice application called “Clip2Mobile” where you can create notes, make calls, add conatcts, launch maps all from your desktop client. more details at http://www.clip2mobile.net
Air Sharing rocks the casbah!! I use it as my PDF, DOCX, XLSX, TXT, JPG viewer (for snippets where PDF was not feasible), temporary file transfer storage. It’s awesome, works with both OSX and Windows. I have my transit maps/schedules on there, work docs for reviewing while in transit, some DMGs for (ahem) sharing. It’s my killer app on the iPhone.
And I agree with Connie B. WTH would you put MUSIC files on here?
To No. 7. The idea behind Clip2Mobile is excellent. The problem: it doesn’t work. It is impossible to log in (with the approved password) in their homepage, their help sucks – they get back to you after a week, and above all – once you have installed it and run it… nada. It doesn’t work. (Is this why it is free ?)
Nice piece of software, especially for free (although I believe it is not free any more).
How can you use a photo you put on the iPhone using air sharing in any way such as setting it as wallpaper or adding it as someone’s contact photo?
Being a newbie to MAC OSX and older than most of the tech-kids these days, (excuses made
) can anyone assist with how or were I can source the information on making this app and my mac actually connect.. patience is running thin. Network jibba jabba is like left handed swahili to me at the moment.. any constructive comments appreciated. D
How do i recover lost password for airsharing?