Hey, it’s started to work with Push Notification apps, so who can blame us for taking a second bite at the Dear Apple. So…
Where’s that free iDisk App at? You remember, the one on your What’s New in MobileMe website:
The free iDisk app, available from the App Store in iTunes, lets you view your iDisk files right on your iPhone. Popular file types, such as Microsoft Office and iWork ’09 documents and presentations, PDFs, and more, are viewable in landscape or portrait. Just tap the file to access it and use pinch gestures to zoom in and out. And any file you’ve viewed recently doesn’t need to be reloaded. So if you start reading a document in the cab to the airport, you can quickly resume reading it on the plane.
One of the great features of iDisk is file sharing. Files that are too big to email can be shared easily by accessing your iDisk online at me.com. Now you can enjoy that same convenience using your iPhone and the iDisk app. Just tap the Share button, choose your recipients, and iDisk sends them an email with a link to download your file. You can limit the number of days a shared file is available and set a password to protect it. And you don’t even need to download a file first to share it.
Apple, you tease! It’s labeled “Coming Soon”, fair enough, but any hints on how soon “soon” is?
As part of the WWDC keynote today, Apple announced new features for their MobileMe service as it pertains to the iPhone:
- Find my iPhone shows map location
- Find alerts sends text or sound to advise of lost iPhone or help find it
Remote wipe lets you clear data from a lost iPhone, or restore it via login or iTunes
Mobile iDisk App gives access to viewable files right on your iPhone
- File sharing lets you send links to files via email with access control
- Access public folders lets you share files on your friends’ iDisks
Like iPhone 3.0, the MobileMe updates will be available June 17.
[Thanks Cody for the tip!]
How you doing, MobileMe? For weeks, months even, you don’t call, you don’t write, then Microsoft’s My Phone moves into the fixer-upper down the street, and Google Sync starts to cozy up to us, and now you’re back with the 3rd news item in just over a week?
This time it’s a tip on how to share multiple files using the new iDisk File Sharing feature we linked to earlier. Here’s the skinny:
- Select the files or folders you want to share. (To select multiple files hold down the Command key on a Mac or the Control key on a PC as you click on each one.)
- Use the Actions menu via the Gear icon in the Toolbar, and select Compress items. This will automatically create a single compressed file named Archive.zip that contains your files or folders.
- Share Archive.zip file just as you would any other iDisk file. (Before you share it, you can change the “Archive” part of the name to something more descriptive, but keep the .zip extension so the receiver’s computer will know to decompress the files when the receiver opens it.)
Of course, you could likely just archive/zip the files prior to engaging MobileMe, but it’s so nice Apple has expressed some interest. Now how about moving that iDisk love over to the iPhone? You know, there are some mobile features me still want there as well..
When Phil Schiller first demonstrated MobileMe at WWDC 2008, one of the features we instantly wanted immediately was the drop-dead simple method for sharing large files via iDisk and email. But the MobileMe launch came and went (and broke down, and went back up), with nary a large file shared between anyone. Until now.
Maybe it’s the pressure of Google’s new, free sync service or Microsoft’s My Phone, or maybe Apple’s engineers finally got it rock-solid. All we know is we’re going to send us some big blobs of data starting today. Apple’s MobileMe News has the details:
We’re pleased to announce that you can now use your MobileMe iDisk to share files with others simply and easily. Instead of attaching a large document to an email and hoping it’s not too big to be received, you can place the file in your iDisk and use the new Share File command in the iDisk web app. It lets you send your friends, family, or colleagues a link they can click to download the file directly. You can password protect the link if you choose to and even set how long it will be available.
They’ve even posted a tutorial! So, is this too little, too late for anyone? Or does it suddenly make MobileMe’s yearly fee a bit of a better deal?
