QuickAdvice: Droplr - Beautiful File And Link Sharing
Droplr ($3.99) by Culturezoo LLC is the official app to manage your Droplr account.
For those that aren't aware, Droplr is a Mac OS X application that helps to make sharing things easier. This applies for files, images and video, audio, text, etc. It lives in the Menubar and it's as simple as drag and drop, and then a link to whatever that was is automatically copied to the clipboard.
And now it's available for your iPhone and iPod Touch in one of the best user interfaces out there.
The trick with Droplr is that there isn't a separate account needed since the app integrates with your Twitter account (unless you don't have this). This is one less login to remember, which is always helpful!
Once logged in, you'll be taken to the main screen that will list all of your 'drops.' Images and video files will have a thumbnail to represent the actual file, links will have an icon that closely resembles Safari's signature compass, and composed notes from the app will have an icon of yellow legal pad paper and a pencil. While these are only files that can be uploaded via the iPhone app, other files you upload from your Mac will show up here as well. For example, audio files will be represented with a wavelength icon that.
In this view, all your uploaded files will also show the name of the file along wit the generated four letter URL identifier for the drp.ly address. Additionally, you can see how long ago the file was uploaded and how many times the link has been clicked on. Want to refresh the statistics? Just do that pull down to refresh thing that is in plenty of other iPhone apps nowadays.
If you tap on a file, there will be a couple of options. These include: Quick Look (either in-app or mobile Safari), Copy (the file link), Email, Tweet, or Delete.
Quick Look is pretty much a preview of the file. It opens up in the app via in-app browser, or you can choose to open up mobile Safari instead and view it the normal way. The default view is the mobile optimized version.
Emailing simply creates a new email message with the link to the file automatically pasted in the body. The tweet button will paste the link into a new tweet in whichever Twitter iPhone client you have set up to be the default (more on this in a bit). Delete will simply get rid of the file from your account (you are limited to 1GB, after all).
From the iPhone app, you can upload a photo or video, shorten a link, or compose a note. For photo and videos, you can pick from the device photo library or get new footage. Links will just get whatever link is already on the iPhone clipboard and turn it into a shortened drp.ly link.
Composing a note will bring up an interface that is like notebook paper. Simply type and then hit the check and it will get uploaded immediately. This is great for when you need to share notes or syntaxes with other people.
A great thing is that whatever it is you're uploading to Droplr will also work even when you exit the app. That's right - it will be working hard to upload your files in the background, assuming that you're on iOS 4.0 or higher. Though there won't be an audio notification that your file is done, so you'll have to go back and check on its progress.
Change your mind about an upload? Just tap that 'x' next to the upload progress and it will cancel the process. Depending on the type of file, it may take a while (like with videos).
Looking for a certain file? There's a search that will search as you type, so you don't miss anything. Unfortunately, it goes by file name, so if you upload any photo or video from the device, the search may not be of much use since you can't really rename these files. It is great though if you use Droplr to share a lot of notes.
Finally, you have the settings of the app, or as they're called here, Preferences. You have a couple of options including: preferred Twitter client, uploaded image and video size and quality, Quick Look default, and a toggle for sounds in the app.
Before you get too excited, keep in mind that not all Twitter clients are listed. The current choices are: Twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone, Echofon/Pro, Icebird, Twittelator, and Twitterrific. Hopefully more Twitter clients can be added to this list in the future, like Weet, Osfoora, Tweetings, etc.
The only problem I encountered was a crashing problem every time I attempted to tweet a note. Perhaps the developers can take note of that and address it in a future update.
If you're a Droplr user, get this app. If you haven't used Droplr, what are you waiting for? It's a free app on the Mac and lives peacefully in the menu bar, and the iPhone app is just gorgeous to look at and a pleasure to use.
The bottom line: Droplr is a great URL shortener and quick-and-easy file sharing service. The app is worth the $4 if you value a good interface and great service.
