I own a few thumb drives, but I can never find them when I need to move files off my laptop. I can, however, usually find my iPhone 4, so I’m thrilled about the new-to-me app Air Sharing ($2.99). File transmitter Air Sharing has been in the iTunes App Store for a long time, but it’s one of those apps you didn’t know you needed until you actually have it installed on your springboard.
Getting started with Air Sharing took some playing, but luckily, developer Avatron has included a comprehensive help guide, including instructions for multiple operating systems, to get you sharing. Once you’ve launched Air Sharing and your Wi-Fi is on, you’ll be able to connect to the phone through the available connections, viewable by tapping the signal icon at the bottom of the screen. For connecting through Mac OS, I was offered four connection options—secure and non-secure versions of Bonjour and IP addresses. I was only able to connect via the secure options, but your mileage may vary.
After I connected, I was able to see Air Sharing’s samples on my laptop, and drop in some test files of my own: a large movie file, an .xls file, a PDF and a Word doc. The .xls, PDF and .doc files were available on my iPhone almost instantly, while the movie took about five minutes to completely upload. Through Air Sharing, I was able to view the content of the text-based documents, although the formatting of the Word doc changed; this was super handy for quickly referencing content. I couldn’t view the .avi file, but was able to transfer it to another computer within minutes. You can also email files as attachments from within the app. If you need to do things like mount remote servers, or print wirelessly, a more powerful version of the app, Air Sharing Pro, is available for the in-app upgrade price of $3.99.
I’ll definitely be keeping Air Sharing on my iPhone for a while—I only wish I had found it sooner.
